DC Wedding & Event Planner | Event Accomplished

For the vendor recap, go to Part 1.

Beautiful white wreath by Philippa Tarrant at the Holy Trinity front doors

Escort card table at the Park Hyatt Hotel with floral arrangement by Philippa Tarrant — Escort Card Table

Park Hyatt ballroom with billowy fabric walls, washed with a soft amber up lights around the room and the pinspots highlighting the centerpieces — What a little pipe and drape can do to hide the otherwise boring ballroom walls. See the uplighting around the room and the pinspotting on the tall centerpieces?

Party Rentals gold grid organza overlay and gold bead clear charger — My new favorite: the gold grid organza overlay paired with the gold bead clear charger from Party Rentals. Note also the menu card and boxed favors. They were the most yummy chocolate covered pretzels.

eaTip #1 : Using a mix of hotel and rented linens help to keep the budget reasonable. You can select a few tables to highlight with specialty rental linens like we did here with the organza overlay for the sweetheart table. The cake table also got special treatment with a double layer of gold shimmer tablecloth.

eaTip #2 : It’s good to mix up the colors as you move from one part of the evening into another. For Abigail, her ceremony decor was mostly white/ivory. At the cocktail hour, we used the brown linens provided by the hotel. Once inside the ballroom for dinner and dancing, there were more touches of gold and deep red. While all the colors were present at each part of the event, the emphasis was on a different color at different parts of the evening. This will give you a coherent overall look but still allows you to vary things up a bit.

Sunday brunch at the Westin Grand Promenade. The floral centerpieces made a 2nd appearance too!

Kicking off the 2009 wedding season! I’m always really anxious with the first wedding of the year. Dust off the cobwebs and off we go! Abigail and Joe came to me via Lori Love who is Abigail’s mom’s cousin and brought back together a bunch of vendors I really love. The forecast didn’t look good for their wedding day as we were expecting rain all day. Luckily, it never actually rained, just misting and very overcast. In retrospect, I think the bad weather kept the crowds away and kept traffic very light. It was the first weekend of Cherry Blossom season and the crowds usually cause havoc with traffic. All photos by Lori Love

Photographer: Lori Love Photography. We last worked with Lori for Sarah and Jordan’s wedding in 2007 so it had been a while. Lori is creative with composition and is fun to be around in general. Lori was able to get some photos outdoors with all the beautiful trees in bloom.

DJ: Chris Laich. Chris is the ultimate professional. As usual, he kept everyone dancing, even grandpa! A little Bon Jovi always revs up a NY/NJ crowd!

Floral Designer: Philippa Tarrant. Philippa’s work is always stunning. Her designs have a very modern sensibility to them and her arrangements are always really lush and full. She did an outstanding job again this time.

Reception Venue: Park Hyatt Washington DC (Amal Zaari) Amal was really easy to work with during the planning process and I can attest to the fact that their food is outstanding. Its catering staff provided attentive service, and the guys working at the entrance were extremely helpful.

Ceremony Venue: Holy Trinity Catholic Church. Courtney, their coordinator, is very helpful and you’ll be in good hands with her. Do note that Holy Trinity does schedule several weddings per day so schedule your time carefully with your ceremony and rehearsal.

Transportation: Reston Limo. My go-to transportation company. Their drivers are always on time and courteous.

Sunday Brunch: Westin Grand (Jennifer de los Reyes) Very easy to work with and accommodating.

Stay tuned for Part 2 for some of the pictures I took! Lori’s photos should be ready soon!

Tag: Westin Grand

Park Hyatt DC Spring Wedding (Part 2)

Park Hyatt DC Spring Wedding (Part 1)