One part simple country club ceremony, another part art gallery reception with a theme of FUN! Emily & Tim rocked their wedding with bright purple and yellow colors, Monsters Inc details, and a rockin’ dance floor (with some seriously amazing dance floor shots). Thanks to The Girl Tyler for submitting today’s real Virginia wedding.
Emily & Tim’s Yellow & Purple, Super Fun Virginia Wedding at Artisphere
Vendors:
Photographer:  The Girl Tyler | Ceremony Venue: Army Navy Country Club | Hair Stylist: Hair Gallery | Caterer: Spilled Milk catering | Groomsmen Shaving: The Art of Shaving | Reception Location: Artisphere | Submitted via Two Bright Lights
We chose purple and yellow for two reasons: It’s the Fraternity colors of the Coed Honor Fraternity, Phi Sigma Pi, that we met in (I married my brother……lol). It also happens to be the colors of James Madison University which I was willing overlook seeing as I’m a Wahoo :-) I originally chose multiple colors (think the Skittles rainbow), but with Tim’s input we together decided that purple/yellow best represented us.
My cousin, Marisa, was my make-up artist. She texted me the day of the wedding saying “should we tell everyone?” When she was like, “what isn’t Chris [her husband] responding!” she realized she texted the wrong person. She then told all of us that she was pregnant which was fabulous news because she had been trying for a little while and we were all soooo happy for her.
My boss at the time, Carla, and coworker Holly were our “florists” They put together all the bouquets, corsages, and boutonnières and stayed up into the wee hours of Saturday morning to ensure everything was fresh and on time.
Click inside for so much more of this awesome, FUN Virginia wedding!
Tim and I wanted something “DC” but ideally not in DC for logistics purposes. The Army Navy Country club was the perfect fit for our ceremony because it had a view of the Washington Monument from the terrace where we said “I do.” Army Navy is my favorite tennis venue in the Washington metro area so that was another reason for picking that spot.
My coworker Courtney was gracious enough to give me her wedding dress. I was happy to have that dress go through a second wedding and I’m hoping to pay it forward to someone else one day. My Grandmother-in-law, Lillian, was my tailor. She altered the wedding dress that my coworker gave me (all 10 layers!!). She also made the garter I wore.
Our friend, Dave (and also a fellow brother of Phi Sigma Pi), was the natural choice for our officiant. The night we went out to an Indian restaurant to ask him, he thought we were going to ask him to play Pachelbel’s Cannon because that’s what he had done for a few friends already. Dave did an amazing job adding his own flavor to the ceremony script and even handled the mid-ceremony stop due to rain wonderfully. A few people came up to him after the ceremony saying “Minister, you did such a great job!” which is funny because he is not a minister :-)
One of Tim’s best friends from high school and now one of my best friends, Catherine, was our ceremony musician. She hadn’t played her violin in years but she dusted it off to play our ceremony music and it was beautiful.
We had a wine capsule “sealed” at the ceremony. Tim and I each picked a red wine and we will open the capsule on our 5 year anniversary to enjoy the wine. We also wrote a letter to each other and put the day’s newspaper in the capsule.
My friend Susan from middle school was our ceremony coordinator and had the hard task of deciding what to do about the rain. She also corralled everyone for pictures, which was no easy task with so many people involved.
The Artisphere was a very different type of venue than Army Navy, but we liked the juxtaposition of the two. We picked the Artisphere for our reception because it has the modern, artsy vibe that we were looking for. My coworker, Janelle, was our day of coordinator for the reception and hit the nail on the head! She was an intern finishing up her schoolwork at George Mason in tourism and events management and she possibly wants to plan weddings as her future line of work so we were more than happy to have her be our day of coordinator. She spent more than 6 hours with me the Wednesday before the wedding to transfer everything over to her.
Tim had a vision for the ballroom at the Artisphere and it included lanterns. He found purple and yellow ones online and ordered batteries and lights to put in each one. With the help of several friends, we ended up staying up super late the Thursday before the wedding putting the batteries/lights together for each lantern. It turned out that the lights weren’t needed due to the great venue lighting but the lanterns themselves looked awesome hanging throughout the space.
 My mother-in-law Gwen made all the wedding cakes and there were a lot of them! Carrot cake is Tim’s favorite cake and we thought we’d be making her job easier by having her make 13 regular-sized cakes (one for each table as the centerpiece). We later realized we made the job harder but she made them all and they looked (and tasted) amazing. Luckily we know the chef well so getting a one year anniversary cake won’t be too difficult :-)
I posted on Facebook that I needed to borrow 15 cake plates since we were putting cakes as the centerpiece of each table and I got 15 no problem! Friends, family, and former coworkers all let me borrow one, two, or even nine cake plates!
The cake toppers were hand made and were the center piece of each cake. It also served as the table information with the table name on it because it was the highest point of the table. Tim designed all of our print materials and we were particularly happy with our Save-the-Date. We got the idea from Pinterest and it is exactly our type of humor! We even made the physical date that we “saved” out of foam materials from Home Depot.
Tim’s friend from college, Cam, is a jeweler and made Tim’s wedding ring. Tim has a hidden diamond on the inside of the band and he loves his wedding ring! Sulley from Monster’s Inc. has been a favorite Disney character of mine and Tim’s Grandmother, Lillian, sewed a shirt for Sulley who “held” up the top of the main cake that we cut. It was hilarious and made him look like super Sully! Sulley the stuffed animal also made several appearances on the dance floor at the reception.
Our DJ was our friend from tennis, Dave (another Dave). He is a CFO by day and DJ by night, providing all the jams of the evening. My twin brother’s friend, Devon, stepped in last minute as our emcee because our other one fell through. He had never done a wedding before, but you wouldn’t have known it!
For the father/daughter dance, we chose the chicken dance because it literally was the first dance my Dad and I ever did together. We showed the video of my dad, my twin brother Tommy, and me doing the chicken dance at our first grade valentine’s day dance in 1991. As the video ended, the lights came on and my Dad, Scott, and I performed the chicken dance live!
My bouquet had a Go-Pro camera in it (got the idea from YouTube). It videoed the whole ceremony and we are so excited to watch it. We haven’t seen it yet (not on purpose, just hasn’t happened) so at this point we will probably wait until our 1 year anniversary to “premier” it.
Tim and his Best Man Brian, who have been brewing together for a number of years, brewed beer for the wedding – the “Grooms Brew.” It got the nickname “Volcano Beer” because it was slightly over-carbonated…….ok, really over-carbonated. Tim’s uncle Brian, also brought apple cider from his Pennsylvania orchard, Solebury Orchards. Tim has been helping out at the orchard since age 5, when it first opened.
Congratulations you two! What a FUN wedding – it was so apparent every one of your guests had a blast that day! Thank you again to The Girl Tyler for sharing their images with us!!
