Pat & Aileen’s Classic Wedding at The Whittemore House in Washington, DC

We’ve hit the midweek hump, and I’m not quite sure how we got here. Thanksgiving is next week, and we haven’t planned our menu at all. We still need to get the guest room cleaned up for Justin’s parents’ arrival, not to mention the rest of the house. How did it sneak up on me like this? I’m hoping to get bits and pieces done while Charlie naps this week, but that relies on him taking good naps [fingers crossed], so we can still relax a bit this weekend.

For today, we’ve got this gorgeous, quintessential DC wedding, with lots of personal touches.

After Pat proposed during a run in Navy Yard, we both agreed instantly that we wanted to get married in DC. Aileen is from Virginia, and Pat is from Ohio, but we both had called DC home for 10 years. We also don’t have a car, so somewhere metro accessible was ideal! Since we were getting married in August, we knew that the ceremony and reception venues had to be inside and air conditioned – no way were we going to subject our guests to the full DC summer experience all day!

Pat found both the ceremony venue, St. Mary Mother of God Catholic Church, and the reception venue, the Whittemore House. He was obviously a keeper. These venues were both quintessential DC, from architecture, to design, and downtown locations. We loved the Whittemore House for its classic design and welcoming feel, with many different rooms that would let guests explore and visit with each other.

Weddings come with A LOT of decisions. Since both venues were rather elaborate in decor, Aileen wanted to keep it simple and classic. She chose sage green and ivory, or white and green as Pat would say. We wanted to bring some of our hometowns into the venue, so we used framed maps of Virginia, Ohio, and DC as decoration. Aileen kept the flowers simple with blue hydrangeas and pops of ivory flowers and eucalyptus. She also found vintage books for the centerpieces at a free book store in Baltimore, MD.

Our family and friends did not believe us when we told them that we would be taking photos in the Smithsonian’s Portrait Gallery Atrium, and then would take the METRO to the Whittemore House. But we did it! It was so fun, even with an offloading train one stop before Dupont Circle. We got some really unique photos and were able to share in an experience that could only happen in DC.

Aileen’s favorite detail from the wedding was the place cards. She had a crazy idea to save some money, and add some local plant clippings to each card. Pat took this very seriously and biked around the Anacostia River to find the perfect plants to place on each place card. After testing out about 10 different ones, Aileen selected her favorites, and Pat and his dad biked around again two nights before the wedding, collecting the necessary amount for 120 place cards. It was ridiculous and sweet.