I love planning lunch time weddings. They tend to be less formal, the guests are more relaxed, and the couples tend to be a little different. Joan and Ben were still able to have a stylish event during the day time, despite the 90+ degree weather.
Venue: Glenview Mansion, Rockville, Maryland. Great venue and great staff.
- Advantages: plenty of parking; reasonable rental rates; beautiful, lush gardens available for ceremony; bowling green available for tenting; tables included in rental rate; outdoor white folding chairs available at additional charge for ceremony; art gallery on 2nd floor open to guests; fairly spacious rooms.
- Challenges: tables only available for use indoors; as with any mansion, guests will be seated in separate rooms; ideal for cocktail style receptions as a sit down dinner is not really possible for more than 50 people.
Caterer: Stone Soup Catering. Chef Zello and his wife Kim run this Germantown company. They are excellent to work with during the planning process, providing prompt answers and assisting in resolving various issues. Their food is delicious also. They have worked at Glenview many times so it was great to have their knowledge. Ben & Joan chose the perfect summer luncheon menu where no dish was too heavy. Nice and light but yet filling.
Floral Designer: Helen Olivia. I really like Marianne’s designs. Joan wanted to stay within the sky blue and orange color schemes. Some of the highlights include the tall, orange filled ceremony arrangements topped with a cloud of blue hydrangeas. Everybody loved them! She also made several orange carnation pomanders and ring pillows.
eaTip: We moved the ceremony arrangements to the buffet table after the ceremony. It’s a great way to save money. If you go this route, be sure to mention this to your floral designer so that he or she can put something together that would make sense in both places. In this case, the oranges in the tall vases made perfect sense and complemented the dishes on the buffet really well.
Ceremony Musicians: Virginia Virtuosi. Made up of 2 violinists and 1 double-bassist, the ensemble plays professionally through this area. This was a great find. Mark, the bassist, contacted me one day out of the blue to introduce his group. I think the double bass really lends itself to a different sound as compared to other string ensembles. Check out the samples on their website. Mark, Tiffany and Nancy get the award for braving the swamp-like weather. Unfortunately, because it was so hot outside, the guests didn’t get to enjoy too much of the prelude music as they were all hanging out in the air conditioned mansion.
Sound Equipment Rental: Dan Sandys Entertainment Group. Because this was a lunch reception and there wasn’t going to be any dancing, Joan and Ben elected to spend their budget elsewhere and chose to play music through their laptop. We rented a sound system through Dan Sandys. It was a cinch. He set it up in 5 minutes! It came with speakers and mics.
Photographer: Holland Photo Arts. I have been waiting for an opportunity to work with Anne and Bill for a long time as I really do admire their work. They are just the nicest people and super easy to work with. I cannot wait to see the results.
Videographer: A&E Productions. I met Eric Nicholas several years ago at another wedding and have kept him in my secret pile of lesser known talent. By day, he works at TV station and on weekends, he shoots weddings! He’s so easy to get along with and if you are looking for professional video work, nothing fancy shmancy, at a reasonable price, he’s your guy. Contact us for his info.