Today’s Washington DC wedding is that perfect mix of “classic DC” and “handmade alternativeness” (yes I just wrote alternativeness. English majors everywhere cringe). Amanda & Blake’s goal for their wedding day was to have FUN and make their guests feel special. They spent a ton of time making sure their guests felt at ease (with welcome bags, flip flops, mad libs, a babysitter at the reception, and more) and they used a theme of “southern comfortable elegance” to set the mood.
They chose the Whittemore House for their venue – a beautiful mansion in the middle of the city. With it’s brick walls and stunning exterior, it really feels like you are mostly at someone’s house, not a wedding venue. And that was exactly what Amanda & Blake wanted! Check out all their gorgeous wedding pictures and details below. They also shared their adorable Save the Date video with us too! A special thanks to Emily Clack Photography for sharing her images.
Amanda & Blake’s Fun, “Southern Elegance” Washington DC Wedding
Vendors
Photography: Emily Clack Photography | Catering: Occasions Catering | Venue: The Whittemore House | Submitted via Two Bright Lights
How they met:
We are the classic story of boy meets girl, girl thinks boy is cute and funny, boy falls madly in love with girl, girl finally gives boy a chance. :-)
The real story is we met through our mutual friends, Janice and Colin Quill, on January 24, 2010 at Clyde’s in Georgetown while Blake was bartending. Amanda was there with Janice to have brunch with some girlfriends when the Quills decided that Blake should come check out the “cute blonde sitting with Janice”…Amanda was also instructed to check out the “cute bartender with a beard.” Later that night we all went out so the “cute blonde” and the “cute bartender” could formally meet. Well, the rest is history.
On their wedding theme:
Our theme was “southern comfortable elegance.” We wanted everyone to feel special at our wedding, so we hired a catering company that had impeccable service. However, we also wanted everyone to feel comfortable, so for dinner we served a choice of fried chicken or pecan crusted rockfish with shrimp and grits and green beans on the side.
On their color palette of blues, greens, yellows & pops of pink:
The colors were really just inspired by springtime colors, but we mostly used navy and green as a canvas, with pops of pink/coral and yellow. I didn’t want everything to be “matchy matchy”.
Click inside for SO MUCH MORE of Amanda & Blake’s gorgeous Washington DC wedding at the Whittemore House.
On selecting the Whittemore House for their DC wedding venue:
The venue was a beautiful old mansion in the middle of DC that felt like we were in someone’s large home…that could hold 150+ people. :-) We also chose the location since both of our families had to travel to DC and most of them decided to make a vacation of it at the same time, so we wanted to make sure everything was easy for them…activities near the hotel, near a metro line, safe area that was easy to navigate on foot, etc. It also didn’t hurt that the Whittemore House is also the Woman’s National Democratic Club and I used to work for the Democratic party.
On the wedding items that they handmade:
Instead of renting lounge furniture my mom made cute pillows for the patio furniture (we now use the same pillows in our new home), ceremony streamers, we designed and printed all the printed items (ceremony program and menu cards/madlibs), drink stirrers, pew enders, homemade (from scratch!) cookies for the hotel welcome bags, our guest book was made by a good friend, “here comes the bride” scroll was made by my mother, and another friend drew all our other signs. My favorite DIY was a purse I made for myself out of pieces of my mother’s wedding dress from 1970…I also made purses/make-up bags for my bridesmaids as a thank you.
^hello crafty couple & family!!
Their ceremony included surprise readings from family and friends – love this!
Blake’s Uncle Donald did a reading, and so did our dear friend, Edgar Endress. We didn’t give them any perimeters and asked them to read whatever they felt was appropriate. We really loved that we did it this way because what each of them read was perfect and it was a nice surprise element in our ceremony!
On keeping their wedding FUN:
We wanted our wedding to be fun and full of laughter! So we had handmade streamers at the ceremony, colorful straws in our signature cocktail, “It Takes 2 to Mango” (tip of the hat to our cat, Mr. Mango), buckeye candies to announce our move to Ohio, glow sticks and stick on mustaches during dancing, we had madlibs on the other side of the menu cards, all our formal dances were upbeat songs…Blake even danced with his mom to “All My Ex’s Live in Texas”!
Congratulations Blake & Amanda! Thank you for sharing your oh-so-fun, yet elegant DC wedding with us! A special thanks again to Emily Clack Photography & Two Bright Lights for the submission. Want more? Check out the couple’s awesome stop motion Save the Date video below:
