(Featured on the wedding blog, The Loveliest Day: here)

My husband Andy and I got married on November 13, 2010 in Washington, DC.  Our ceremony was held at the Church of the Holy City on 16th St, and our reception was at the amazing Decatur House on Lafayette Square.  We used hot pink, black, grey, and polka dots as our colors and our theme was mostly Washington, DC with a splash of hipster attitude. In order to keep things on a budget AND keep the wedding to ourselves, we made a TON of our wedding items, to include:

Bride & Bridesmaids’ Bouquets (made with love by bride’s mother from Christmas ornaments & tulle!)

the Groom & Groomsmens’ Boutonnieres

Our STDs (Save the Dates!) and Washington, DC Themed Invitations

Decorations at the Church were Christmas Ornament Pomanders (which were then re-used as centerpieces for the high top tables at the cocktail hour)

Centerpieces were Christmas ornaments in lotus bowls which doubled as our guests’ favors

Mustache Photo Guest Book Station (we couldn’t afford a real photobooth, so we did a DIY photo guestbook instead!)

Menu cards & origami stands to hold them up – using all our leftover paper from our invitations

Washington, DC Neighborhood Table Name Cards (again, more leftover paper!)

My wedding dress! (Handmade by Andy’s mother from a vintage 50’s pattern)

DIY  not only helped keep costs down, but helped us to feel truly apart of the overall process. When guests complimented our wedding, we felt FANTASTIC knowing that we had done so much of it ourselves, versus paying someone else to do it.

In fact, the best compliment my husband and I received the day of our wedding was that the entire day, ceremony, and reception were “so you, such a reflection of who you both are as individuals and a couple.” Wow. That was exactly what we wanted, and we were SO happy that our family, friends, and guests could see that.

In addition to DIY, we did things OUR way.

We shimmied down the aisle to Hall & Oats “You Make My Dreams Come True”:

We wrote our own vows:

We had family members read a poem and the lyrics of a song that meant a great deal to us and lit candles to Jimmy Eat World’s “Hear You/Me” for loved ones that were no longer with us:

We had the my bro-in-law sing AND play the guitar to Alexi Murdoch’s “All My Days”:

And finally, after officially becoming husband and wife, rocked back down the aisle to “24 Hours” by The Sounds.

Andy donned hot pink chucks to match my dress, the groomsmen wore Volcom grey suits and black chucks

and the bridesmaids got to wear whatever black dress they wanted (and I, of course, made them pose with Harry Potter books – because I had 7 bridesmaids and ADORE Harry Potter!)

Our reception included the wedding party entering to the Jock Jams MegaMix

AND a Flash Mob First Dance to a Weezer’s “If You’re Wondering If I Want You To (I Want You TO). Andy & I cannot slow dance other than 8th grade style.

We didn’t have a maid of honor or a best man, so we asked our siblings to write toasts:

And they did a seriously amazing job…

The Bride-Father dance was to an early 90s song (“Closer to Free“) because my Dad used to always change the words to sing “Closer to Bree” when I was a kid.

And Andy danced with his mom to a beautiful Chuck Ragan song:

And then we danced our faces off to the BEST wedding band in Washington, DC: The Winn Brothers Band.

We opted to forego traditional wedding cake and instead had a friend make funfetti cupcakes for us – and they were DELICIOUS!

Finally, we ended the most perfect night of our lives in style. With none other then, Ms. Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You“.

The point of this section on my blog? (No, I promise it isn’t to brag…) It’s to show people in this great city that you don’t HAVE to do what everyone else does when it comes to your wedding. You really can do exactly what YOU want to do, and still have the best day of your life. Don’t have a million dollars to spend? That’s fine, I didn’t either, but I was still able to get everything I wanted for my big day, maybe just not always in the first way I thought of….

For more pics & video of our wedding, please see the following from our videographer and photographer’s blogs:

Live It Out Photo: Part 1 here. Part 2 here.

Tim Alan Smith: here

Hope you enjoy it all as much as we did. ~Bree & Andy~