Free Veil from Carine's Bridal Atelier!

If you're still in the market for a fabulous gown, be sure to check out the Mid-Summer Sample Sale at Carine's Bridal Atelier on Thursday, July 23rd at 6pm-9pm. Plus, if you purchase your gown at the sale, you'll get a FREE VEIL! Pretty cool, huh?

Save up to 70% on over 100 sample bridal gowns by top designers including Angel Sanchez, Junko Yoshioka, Melissa Sweet, Platinum Collection, Reem Acra, Rosa Clara, and others. Sample sale gowns include Spring and Fall 2009 collections!!

Please RSVP to info@carinesbridal.com

Carine's Bridal Atelier is located at 1726 Wisconsin Ave NW 2nd Floor(Between R and S Streets in Georgetown).

Happy dress hunting!

Engaging Affairs Summer Camp

This year, the ladies of Engaging Affairs decided to do a series of Bridal Bootcamps to further our skills and enable us to help you in any situation. The first session took place last night at Petal's Edge floral shop in Alexandria. Our fabulous friend Rebecca showed us the ins and outs of floral 911 as we learned about the tools of the trade (or, what floral equipment to keep in our emergency kits) and how to make last minute bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages. If you're in downtown DC, any corner flower seller will do. If you're on the outskirts or elsewhere, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods or the nearest food market will work too.



Personally, I know how hard floral design is. I tried my hand at it back in college and I didn't do so well. There really is an art to everything from bouquet to arrangement making. The hand cramping is the worst and if you plan on doing flowers, I hope you don't care about the appearance of your fingers. Weekly manicures won't help your cause!


In the end, I think we all did pretty well. We still have to perfect our skills, but we were all able to complete a bouquet, boutonniere and a corsage that met a professional's approval. We had a lot of fun doing it and personally, I have even more respect for all the talented floral designers out there. Hats off to you!

Sara

Kara DioGuardi's wedding!

Our good friend Justine Ungaro is becoming quite the celebrity wedding photographer! First she shot Lisa Loeb's wedding and last weekend she photographed American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi's wedding to teacher-turned-general contractor Mike McCuddy.

The wedding took place in Prospect Harbor, Maine with the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter wearing a Vera Wang gown for the small ceremony in front of about 30 guests. Check out this amazing photo courtesy of Justine Ungaro (but you may have seen it in InTouch Weekly first). What a gorgeous view and amazing sky!

Sara and I had the good fortune to meet Kara when she sang at Justine's wedding last October (before she hit the Idol scene). She was so cool in person and an amazing singer.

Congrats to Justine for being fabulous and to Kara for getting married!

Laura

Grace's Destination Wedding in Naples!

Married now for three months, I am getting used to the title of “wife” and having a husband. I think the hardest part after getting married was calling my fiancée, Adam, my husband! But now I have gotten used to both titles and we are enjoying being newlyweds.

The wedding in Naples, Florida was beautiful! Everything went as planned and even the weather held up for us, with clear skies and no rain, thank goodness. Although it rained a bit at the rehearsal dinner and I religiously clung to the weather channel all the days and hours leading up to the wedding, the weather worked in our favor and we were able to have our ceremony outside. The ceremony time was scheduled for 6:00 pm, however, the ladies schedule of events began a lot sooner…

Falling asleep the night before around 2:00 am, I awoke around 7:00 am with much anticipation. However, I was unusually calm, restful and put together. My mom and sister were excited to see me and began to sing the old song from The Muppet Movie – “Somebody’s Getting Married Todayyyyyy.” We danced around the kitchen a bit with smiles as I began to think, “Wow, this is it, today is the day I am getting married.” We soon got dressed, and drove to the hotel to pick up the other ladies in our bridal party before we headed over to the salon.

When I arrived at the hotel, my soon-to-be husband was sending me messages that he was at the hotel and not to come inside. Adam being very superstitious, he warned me of the bad luck of seeing each other before the wedding. So with carefulness, we pulled up to the hotel and the girls quickly jumped into the car to greet me. It was so exciting to see everyone with their flowing gowns in hand and accessories to match. We gave our hugs, kisses and good mornings and headed off to the salon. While my mom and dad were setting up our beautiful candy table for the reception, my aunt was arriving at the salon with breakfast. Although I was forced to eat on many occasions throughout the morning, I only managed to nibble at a half of a glazed doughnut. My adrenaline and excitement was pumping enough energy in me...no need for food!

My mom shortly arrived and after a few hours of completing each girls' last spritz of hair spray and ensuring each bobby pin was in its place, we left the salon in Naples ready to go back home for a bit of relaxation before heading over to the club. Once arriving back home, we made our last minute makeup touches, phone calls to the vendors and ate lunch before leaving...three hours until “I DO.”

Arriving to the club, I was ushered into the dressing room as the ladies began assisting each other with their dresses and I began stepping into mine. As my last shoe was placed on my foot I felt like Cinderella getting ready for the ball. The photographer, Michelle Reed arrived and we had some alone time for a while as she took my bridal shots. I felt like a movie star at a famous photo shoot as I was asked, “Look this way, oh yes, beautiful, perfect shot.” What a wonderful, beautiful day. Thirty minutes until I see my new husband.

More photos were taken and I received intel that Adam was ready to go and the last boutonniere had been pinned. The ladies grabbed their bouquets, I did a last minute makeup check and we were on our way to the ceremony. This is it.

Walking down the aisle with my dad, the feeling of love overwhelmed me. I was so happy to be with my family, looking ahead at all the friends that had come from as far away as Australia. But the most love was felt as I looked up at my groom awaiting for his bride. I am getting married!

The ceremony, conducted by my uncle was wonderfully romantic and heartfelt. The violin music provided by Vivian Aiello and Joan Stewart with Seaside Strings http://www.seasidestrings.net/ added to the feeling of the evening, along with the vows which Adam and I had written ourselves. We cried, laughed, smiled and finally enjoyed our f irst kiss as husband and wife. After the ceremony, we were whisked away for our romance shots with Michelle. We wished we could have spent hours with her recreating those special moments, but as everyone knows, it was time for the reception to begin and finally time to dance!



The reception room was absolutely gorgeous! More than we could have dreamed! Created by the team at Pink Tangerine consisting of Sheryl, Michelle and Olga, our magical, romantic dream was realized. The entire room was up-lit with amber up-lighting and an abundance of votive candles. Not only were candles placed all over the room and on the tables but they were hanging from each centerpiece off curly willow branches and dripping from the 12-foot trees strategically placed around the room. As my uncle looked at Adam and said, "This is what I imagine heaven to look like," I couldn't help but tear up.

The rust-colored linens added to the warm feel of our six guest tables, the candy station table created by my mom and our “walk down memory lane” picture table. My mom used our color-combination of yellows and tangerine to gather candy from all over the country for our candy table. The guests loved this special treat, which also added as a colorful decoration to our reception room.



In addition to candy, we enjoyed a five-tier wedding cake, which can only be described as AMAZING. Karen with Kakes by Karen http://www.kakesbykaren.net/ in Naples did a beautiful job recreating a picture found online along with adding details of flowers which I had created in my mind. It was more beautiful than we could have imagined, not to mention it tasted unbelievable!



Our first song began as we waltzed into the dining room and our elegant, romantic evening with our closest friends and loving family began. Today as I write I can still feel all the emotions of the day and long for more time to take in all that we were experiencing. As everyone says, our wedding day just flew by, but we wouldn’t have changed anything. What a perfect day on April 4th...the first day of our new lives together and my first day as Adam’s wife.

Thank you again to all the people that made our day so special! Especially to the talents of Michelle Reed and her team. I have posted a few of her pictures from our beautiful wedding day! You can visit more of Michelle’s work at her website.

Grace

Out of State Nuptuals

Well, there are a few more weddings I need to post about to close up my spring season. And what a season it was, lucky you! I start with my June 13th wedding of Krista Kilbourne to Rory Dowdell. What an adorable couple. And don't even get me started on their dogs! I love dog people. Anyway, this wedding held a special place in my heart because I have worked with this family before. This was the first of 4 weddings I am working on for a former bride's sibling. It's an honor in general to be asked back and a treat to get to plan something completely different than the first time. And this wedding was exactly that.


I worked with the groom's sister on her June 2006 wedding at the Ronald Reagan Building. That was an 8 week planning process and everything was modern, colorful and pretty intense. I had a little bit more time to work with Rory and Krista, who started off their planning about a year and a half before the wedding. The couple live in Florida and the bride is from Pennsylvania, right over the DE/PA line. Given the bride's intense medical school schedule, there was only a small window of time to have the event and what seemed like a while to plan it.


The venue was the historic Hotel du Pont in Wilmington, DE. The bride had her heart set on this beautiful, traditional hotel with gold detailed ballroom. Carl Alan of Carl Alan Creations in Philadelphia, created a romantic feel with flowers in brown and shades of pink with a very traditional look. The table settings and chairs added more dramatic look to the gold that adorned the ballroom walls and ceiling.


Laura Novak, of Laura Novak Photography, was the perfect fit with the couple to capture Krista and Rory's big day. She had traveled to Maine with them last summer to capture some engagement pictures the couple them used for their save the dates. Guests were served a fabulous 4 course meal with cake to follow as they danced into the night by the sounds of the Source. Jenny Lehman was also on hand to catch every exciting and emotional minute on video. Thank you as well to our ceremony and cocktail musicians from Elan Artists and our lighting crew from Digital Lightning.



Sara

Cupcake Heaven

For a while, it seemed cupcakes became the trend in weddings. For my couples who have chosen to serve cupcakes over cake in the past year, it was not so much a trend, but just the desire to not be so predictable and to add more of a comfort food feel to such a personal day. One couple even topped off their cupcake tower with a giant cupcake they could cut into, as opposed to a small cake.


It seems the DC bakery market saw the trend and thus cupcakeries have popped up all over DC from Georgetown to Dupont to Chinatown. I happened to have a fabulous couple last year who did do the cupcake thing at their wedding, and their search for the best cupcake didn't stop there. Being the dessert lover I am, I decided to join in the search with them. Earlier this month we sat down with three cupcake bakeries products, four cupcakes from each, and not quite empty enough stomachs. Here's what we discovered:


Participants: Georgetown Cupcake, Baked and Wired, Red Velvet Cupcakery



Selection:
Georgetown Cupcake- Red Velvet, Coconut, Chocolate with Vanilla Icing, Chocolate3
Baked and Wired- Birthday Cake, Strawberry, Carrot, Banana
Red Velvet- Strawberry, Carrot, Cookies and Cream, Wake up Call



Focus Group- consisted of 2 very hungry men and 2 very eager women

Findings:

• Baked and Wired clearly had the largest cupcakes, wrapped in wax paper instead of regular cupcake cups. A great value for your sweet tooth.
• The old classics just didn't live up to our expectations. Did someone forget about chocolate and vanilla? They didn't stand out at all!
• Coconut cupcake reminded us too much of suntan lotion. We'd rather wear it than eat it!
• Baked and Wired's strawberry cupcake had great cake with real pieces of strawberry in it. The icing however was lacking in flavor.
• Red Velvet's strawberry cupcake cake was just ok, but the icing was great!
• This is a group who likes stuff in their cake. The carrot cupcake from baked and wired was great. Full of carrots, nuts and raisins. The icing however wasn't the real cream cheese icing a carrot cake needs.
• The carrot cupcake from Red Velvet was a bit of a let down, but the cream cheese icing was spot on!
• The red velvet cupcake from Georgetown Cupcake gets an honorable mention. Did you know real red velvet is not just vanilla cake with red food coloring?
• Cookies and cream and wake up call were just ok. It also could have been that we weer just too full to taste the goodness.

Conclusions:

We made two major decisions. 1) if the cake from Baked and Wired got together with the frosting from Red Velvet Cupcakery, they would have the perfect cupcake. 2) The banana cupcake from Baked and Wired was hands down the best cupcake we tried.



So, there you have it. There are many more bakeries who offer these decadent treats. Perhaps a taste test II will be necessary. I would love to hear some of your favorites so we can get a second group going. Here's to a yummy summer!!

Sara

Old World Wedding at The Anderson House

There is something so special about a small, intimate wedding. Don't get me wrong. I love the big, grand affairs and do quite a few of them but I seem to identify more and more with the understated affairs. If I was planning my own wedding again, I wouldn't even dream of having six bridesmaids (or was it seven?) and worrying about their dresses for months. I would do what Ceci did at her May 30th wedding and have just one.

Ceci and Eric chose one maid of honor and one best man and kept their guest list under 100 people. This made for such an intimate, lovely wedding. Every single person at the wedding meant something to the couple, and the bride and groom were able to spend time with each of them.


The bride got ready at The Park Hyatt with the fabulous Ishmael from George's at The Four Seasons doing her hair and the super-talented and incredibly sweet Kim Giammarria of Beauty Mark doing makeup.


Ceci's gorgeous dress was from Carolina Herrera in New York. The detailing on the gown was breathtaking but the silhouette was so simple and completely in keeping with the Old World style that the bride wanted to evoke throughout the wedding.

My associate, Grace, helping Ceci with her veil once I had dashed off to Christ Church in Georgetown to get ready for the ceremony.

Because the Anderson House is so ornate, the bride wanted to follow the style and have an Old World feel to the floral decor. Christopher from Amaryllis created the gorgeous, lush arrangements that used shades of creams, whites and pinks. We used silver candleabra and heavily gilded china and crystal to create an almost Romanov feel to the formal dinner. For a fresh look in the garden, we used pink toile and julep cups with soft pink peonies.

Heavy, gold-edged menu cards from Mrs. John L. Strong in New York were engaved with the couple's monogram.

In the Winter Garden, we used long rectangular tables and a collection of arrangements running down the tables to make the space unique since it was slightly separated from the party (it opens into the ballroom via French doors) . In the ballroom, we used rounds and one large oval table for the head table.

To change the mood for dessert and dancing, we used a lucite table lit from within and very modern green and white flowers. The lighting that created the beautiful, warm atmosphere in the ballroom (and uplit the dessert table) was done by Lightolutions.

The groom toasts the bride as guests look on. I love it when grooms make remarks at weddings and especially when they say as lovely things as Eric did about his bride.

The couple enjoying the dinner. Design Cuisine created an amazing dinner featuring an amuse bouche of gazpacho, a fish course, lamb, a salad and cheese course and a sumptuous dessert buffet. Guests were raving about the food.

The couple dances to the Burnett Thompson band. Burnett and his fabulous musicians kept the guests entertained with classic big band and Sinatra.

My favorite thing: a happy bride and groom! Thanks to Greg Gibson for the stunning pictures. It is always fun to work with Greg and his team.

A big shout-out to Linda from Linder and Associates for the seamless transportation the entire weekend. We had lots of out-of-town guests and Linda and her team made sure everyone was taken care of.

My favorite moment of the day: The father-of-the-bride introducing the couple as they walked down the long staircase into the ballroom. It was so personal and sweet!

My favorite detail: The fun, modern dessert table!

As always, I had so much fun working on this wedding.

Laura