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.