Corey and Peter's wedding was a total blast and right up my alley (pun intended). Their non-traditional wedding was held at the Georgetown Pinstripes - a restaurant/bar/event space/bocce court and bowling alley. Hells to the yes. Corey was a DIY master, creating tons of great little details that made their day super special and unique.

After getting ready they started their day with a first look and portraits around Georgetown - the couple met at Georgetown University. We then had the ceremony at Pinstripes, with cocktails, bocce and bowling downstairs for cocktail hour while we somewhat frantically flipped the space for the reception!

In addition to Corey's awesome DIY details, which included hand-made notecards for the guests to fill out for each of their upcoming anniversaries (I've said it before and I'll say it again - I LOVE this guest book alternative), this wedding was also FULL of surprises. Corey's Mom did a surprise "rap" toast (to Fresh Prince of BelAir, obviously). Corey and her brothers surprised the guests with a choreographed dance, followed by ANOTHER surprise dance flash mob that Corey's family had put together. It was awesome. Needless to say, dancing, dancing and more dancing followed.

Big thanks to TellChronicles for the great photos - and can we talk about how freaking hot Corey and Peter are? Hot damn. (and a shout-out to Peter's Mom for a truly awesome hat - we need more hats and fascinators at weddings, please).

Congrats again to Corey and Peter!

Corey and Peter's Vendors:

Venue and Catering: Pinstripes

Coordinator: Katie Wannen, The Plannery

Photographer: Emily from TellChronicles

DJ: Dominick from DJ Paul Entertainment

Florist: Dahlia Floral and Vallena Ferguson

Cake: Catherine Cullen

Cocktail Music: Wentworth Richardson

Kate and Jeff kicked off my busy wedding season this year with a DIY wedding at Stroga. I loved their wedding because it was so diverse and is a great reminder that you can easily merge tradition with some other non-traditional choices. Mad props and big thanks to Edward Underwood for the great photos of Kate and Jeff’s big day!

They began with a Catholic ceremony at Holy Trinity in DC, but followed with a fairly non-traditional reception. Rather than have a traditional caterer, their wedding was catered by a restaurant, Kabob Bazaar! They brought delicious Persian cuisine including hummus, dips, falafel, kabobs (of course) and salads. One quick note: because this wasn’t a traditional wedding caterer, we needed to hire extra catering help for the venue set-up as well as keeping tables clean and bussed, and over all service assistance (for example, asking the tables up to the buffet). The staff were all people I’d worked with on a previous DIY catered wedding and they were fabulous. Could not have done it without them! In addition to the food, Kate’s family DIY’d the flowers, as well as the table runners. They also hired a separate bartending service to take care of the bars.

After dinner and some toasts, the infamous and fab DJ DMac kept the dance floor packed.

It didn’t hurt that in addition to some personal fatheads of Kate and Jeff (which were freaking hilarious), they also had a special guest appearance by Teddy himself.

I’d helped coordinate this surprise for the guests and it was AWESOME. When Kate first gave me the news I freaked out because, obviously, Teddy is my most favorite Nats mascot. The Nats mascot folks were so easy and great to work with and people loved dancing with Teddy and taking photos.