Rebecca & Craig’s Super Fun, TV-Themed Wedding Outside Virginia

Images: Jessica Latos Photography

I always get a little over-excited when fellow wedding industry peeps share their wedding with me/this blog! Craig & Rebecca’s awesome, TV-themed wedding is no exception. I have to absolute pleasure of knowing Rebecca as a fellow wedding planner/coordinator in the area. She is an absolute bundle of joy & SUCH a helpful resource for my/my biz. Her wedding to Craig is so insanely reflective of the two of them, you’re all going to LOVE it. So here it goes:

Craig and I had been discussing getting engaged when two friends went on a weekend trip to Capon Springs. When they got back, they both emailed me separately and told me that we MUST get married there. Craig and I made a trip to visit on the final weekend that they were open for the year and absolutely fell in love with it, and booked our wedding right then and there. We loved EVERYTHING about it — the owners (the same family has owned and operated Capon Springs for generations) were just about the most lovely people you could ever meet, the setting was ABSOLUTELY stunning, and the food was exactly what we had always wanted — delicious, plentiful, and appropriately casual for our very non-fancy families! We booked the venue, got engaged a couple of months later (officially), and started on a year and a half of planning.

It was important to us to have as many friends and family members involved in the wedding as possible. Because we’re a little older, a large number of these people have children, and since we love them ALL, we knew we had to have a wedding with kids…we just didn’t realize that this would lead to there being over 70 children on the guest list, most of whom were under the age of 8!

Because our venue was at least 2 hours away for pretty much everyone, nearly all of our guests stayed on site, so we wanted to make our welcome bags really special. One of my former brides, Trish Willard, is a graphic designer, so as our wedding gift, she designed the logo for our welcome bags (which I then ironed on cotton tote bags) and water bottles. They included the phrase “I love you and I like you” from Ben and Leslie’s vows on Parks and Recreation — a theme we carried throughout our wedding, both on a banner at the reception and in our own vows.

We wanted to involve the kids closest to us in the ceremony, so we planned on a little “parade” to kick off the processional with the kids carrying a banner (made by one of my former brides) and waving ribbon wands (made by the bride and groom!).

For our first Christmas together, I gave Craig a copy of the book “A Lovely Love Story” by Edward Monkton, so as one of our readings we had our friend Meghan read it to the kids — I dyed a drop cloth and we set it out for the kids to come sit on so they could hear better and look at the pictures while she read — everyone loved it! We also had a reading done by Craig’s mom’s best friend (Craig’s mom passed away before we met) from Justice Kennedy’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized gay marriage throughout the country.

READ MORE FOR THE REST OF REBECCA & CRAIG’S SUPER FUN, TV-THEMED WEDDING!

My favorite color is peacock blue, and Craig’s is blue in general, and I am SO SO tired of the neutrals that have been popular over the last few years! So I had the bridesmaids choose whatever dress they wanted to in shades of peacock, aqua, turquoise, etc. and had the AMAZING Katie Martin do all of the flowers in the brightest shades possible — hot pinks and bright yellows. Katie and I also worked together to make the tissue paper pom wall that served as the backdrop of our photo booth, which was provided by Tom and Ashlee, great friends of ours from Documentary Associates. I also bought bright pink pashminas for my bridesmaids in case it was cold…and thank God I did, because it was FREEZING!!!! It rained on and off all day, but luckily the sun came out for the ceremony!!

I am SO lucky being in the wedding industry that I have so many friends in all parts of the industry, so not only was I able to have some of the most awesome vendors who are also great friends, but tons of our guests were either other people who work in the wedding industry or former couples of mine — it was a fun little reunion of sorts as my former couples often got to see their officiant or photographer for the first time since their own wedding!

Because we didn’t have a huge budget, and we had a VERY long engagement, there were a lot of DIY (or DIF — “Do It Friends”) projects at our wedding. From the aforementioned welcome bags (designed by Trish, ironed by me over hours of television watching), the welcome sign the kids carried at the wedding (former bride), the food and drink menus at the reception, done on old windows (done by Trish and wedding photographer/friend Kyle Bergner) (and painstakingly sanded and cleaned by Craig), the “confetti” the guests threw at the ceremony was really flower petals from flowers leftover from my weddings for the past year, dried, then cut up with my herb scissors, put into glassine envelopes and taped with washi tape to the front of the programs that I designed. Craig and I made the ribbon wands. I hand stamped our return address on about a billion envelopes, and hand stamped the cookie boxes.

Continuing with the TV theme (Rebecca is OBSESSED with Television, while Craig tolerates her obsession), we had a “Treat Yo Self” cake topper, all of our tables were named after TV shows, with a photo of the cast on the front, and a quote from the show on the back. (My favorite? Rory: “You should walk down the aisle to Frank Sinatra, with a big bouquet of something that smells really good.” Lorelai: “Pot roast?” — Gilmore Girls. The escort cards were on little business card sized cards, with a photo of a couple from the show on it, which then went into little envelopes in various shades of blue, which were hand lettered (as were our invitations) by Cassie, another one of our planners at Blue Canary — in fact, we did a trade. She hand lettered our invitations, escort cards and place cards, and I coordinated her wedding a few months earlier on Halloween!

We also heavily focused on the TV theme in our welcome bags as well. In addition to the water bottles and the bags themselves, we had an activity booklet highlighting many of the activities that could be done at Capon Springs, from playing horseshoes to getting a massage to playing ping pong, to just sitting and drinking on your porch. Of course, these were all highlighted by assorted TV characters. We also had a wedding weekend timeline that some TV characters helped with, and on our web site, we had a guide for what to wear to the wedding.

OH! I’m from Pittsburgh, and Craig has a lot of family from Pittsburgh, and so, of course, we had to have a cookie table! Friends and family brought AMAZING cookies from family recipes, as well as some of my Pittsburgh favorites, like Smiley Face Cookies from Eat N Park, thumbprint cookies and pecan tassies from Oakmont Bakery, and I made about 24 dozen buckeyes!

Our toasting flutes were a favor from a past couple’s wedding, because the groom’s family owns Galway Crystal based in Ireland. And my “Cute Shit” bag was a gift from a past bride as well — there were so many touches from former couples there!!

Because we had exclusive use of the venue for the weekend, we were also able to have dinner with everyone Friday night, and a big bonfire afterwards! That part was SO much fun, as friends played shuffleboard, drank, ate smores and got to know one another before the big day.

Vendors ~> Photographer: Jessica Latos Photography | Wedding Planners: Anjie Henry and Laura Auer from Blue Canary Events | Venue and Caterer: Capon Springs and Farms | Videographer: Brian Hoeg Films | Florist: Katie Martin, Elegance and Simplicity | Photo Booth: Tom and Ashlee, Documentary Associates | DJ: Devin Alexander, My Deejay | Hair and Makeup: SAS Studio and Salon | Officiant: Amanda Tate | Invitations: The Ink Lab | Dress: Maggie Sottero, purchased at the AMAZING Cherry Blossom Bridal | Graphic Designer for Welcome Bags and Water Bottles: Trish Willard | Printing of programs, Escort Cards, all Welcome Bag materials and Table Numbers: DC based BaseCamp DC, who I HIGHLY recommend!