Kristen & Alex’s Modern Meets Vintage, Intimate DC Wedding at Darlington House

Images: Love Life Images submitted via Two Bright Lights

I always love hearing from couples that they used my blog to find vendors or help plan their DC wedding! Such is the case with Kristen & Alex, who found the OH-SO-FABULOUS Emily of Love Blooms through me and planned a TOTALLY “Capitol Romance” wedding with a DC War Memorial engagement, dinner & dancing at The Darlington House, no bridal party, a DIY music playlist, and lots of personal details throughout the wedding.

From the bride:

I knew two things going into wedding planning- I wanted to get married outside and we really wanted a DC wedding- in the District. We don’t have a car, and a lot of decisions I made we based around that. If it was too hard for us to get to a place on public transit it was off the list. Our friends were tireless in their help and support for us. They helped me run so many errands, gave valuable opinions and just let me vent for months, I couldn’t have done it without them.

That said, I really didn’t want us to be relying on friends to schlep us and wedding decor all over either. For these reasons finding Metro or at least taxi/Uber accessible locations were very important for us. I started searching online and even making phone calls about ceremony and reception locations. I found the DC War Memorial pretty quickly, there are some other local couples on blogs who have gotten married there and the pictures were always beautiful when I saw them.

I actually found my photographer, Love Life Images, by googling DC War Memorial weddings. Dealing with the Parks Service, wasn’t hard per se, but you pay the fee, apply for your date, and then wait. Lucky for us the date we picked was free and it was only $90 for the permit!

—> CLICK INSIDE FOR THE REST OF KRISTEN & ALEX’S DC WEDDING <—

As far as other details, I like to be crafty so I looked at all sorts of DIY projects and would have enjoyed making some decor. But we live in 700 sq. apartment with our two cats; it just wouldn’t have worked well to make all sorts of wedding decorations. And again I didn’t want my friends driving me all over with decor, so we kept decorations to a minimum. For that reason, I made sure I really loved the details we did get.

Our good friends Nick and Christina moved to DC a couple years ago. I’ve known Christina for ten years, but Nick and Alex met for the first time when he moved to DC, but they hit if off right away. Nick had officiated a wedding for his friend’s awhile ago, and even before Alex and I were engaged we decided (perhaps over drinks) Nick would marry us when the time came. I’m so happy we had Nick to officiate, I don’t think anyone else could have included the things that we wanted in our ceremony, but also given it such a personalized feel- I got David Bowie quotes in my wedding ceremony- heck yeah! Also, Christina is a a professional project manager, her skills and focus helped us get the ceremony planned and written.

I loved my flowers, I chose to get married at a time of year when I could get peonies. The bouquets by Emily at Love Blooms (which I found on Capitol Romance) turned out perfect- so pink, fluffy, and happy. We got our guest book and cake toppers on Etsy. Since we didn’t have a bridal party, I was able to show my wedding “colors” on the guest book. Though I would say I had colors of pink and Tiffany blue, I didn’t really get super into the “colors” idea– I had a spring wedding I wanted all the pretty colors! We also lucked out and had beautiful day at a gorgeous white marble monument as a back-drop, so we didn’t need much more to make it pretty.

Music is really important to us and we didn’t really have the budget or the space (we maxed out our guest capacity) for a DJ. We opted to make our own playlist and play it off my iPad.

We worked on the playlist for months; we wanted to make sure we had a mix of classics and newer music. I think we spent too much time worrying about what other people would want to hear, like will so and so dance to this? As we got closer to the wedding, I just decided “You know what? I am adding on all the songs I dance by myself to when I am cleaning or getting ready. This gave us a great mix of the Beatles, Paul Simon, Blondie, Beyonce, the Killers, Arcade Fire, David Bowie, Outkast, Bruno Mars and more. And, it ended up being a great playlist that got everyone dancing.