You may recall the 'Prove Your Love' Wedding Planning Giveaway we hosted a few months back with our dear friends over at A. Dominick Events. Well, our winning couple's wedding is fast approaching, and we have bride Frederika here today to share a bit about how the planning process is going!
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Hello readers! I’m Frederika, and I’m honored to be a guest blogger for you all!
My fiancé Chris and I were fortunate enough to win the wedding planning package from A. Dominick Events when he submitted the story of how we met and fell in love to "From Hello to Hitched" as part of their "Prove Your Love" contest last year. As our March 31st wedding is fast approaching (2 weeks, wahh!?), we’ve been so happy to have Cindy, our month-of coordinator, holding our hands and helping us trudge through our remaining mile-long to-do lists.
Despite all of the wedding tasks that keep piling up, I jumped at the chance to write a few blog entries for you all. Blogs have been an ongoing source of inspiration for me throughout my planning process, and I’m thrilled that I get the chance to share some of my experiences with you lovely readers! Today I’d love to start with one of the most difficult decisions Chris and I encountered while wedding planning – where to host our big day!
Let me start by giving you a bit of background about Chris and I… neither of us has exactly grown up in one spot. I was born in Germany (where all of my extended family remains), and at age 5 I moved to Vancouver, Canada with my parents. Chris was also born in Germany, but as a military brat he ended up moving to Alabama, North Carolina, New York, Kansas, Virginia, Florida, Texas, California, and of course, Washington, D.C. He lived in DC longest (a whopping four years) while attending Georgetown. You can see how our nomadic habits complicated the decision of where to have this wedding of our dreams juuust a little bit.
So, how did we end up choosing DC? It came down to the type of wedding we wished to host. Chris and I agreed that what we wanted most was a big fat family party that we could invite all of our nearest and dearest to. We are both from very large families (I am one of 5 siblings, Chris is one of 6) so a destination wedding in Europe just wouldn’t have worked. DC is more or less equidistant to Vancouver and Germany, and it’s made very accessible by all the airports located close by. Not to mention Chris’ ties to Georgetown and that most of his family is from the East Coast.
What really sealed the deal for us is that DC is an amazing spot for a vacation. Chris and I were confident that for those out-of-country friends and family travelling to the wedding, DC would not disappoint. The museums, the monuments, the Cherry Blossom Festival – all these things made DC the ideal wedding location for our guests and us. After we decided on DC, the location of our ceremony and reception almost felt like a piece of cake. We chose Holy Trinity Catholic Church for our ceremony, as Chris had been a parishioner there during his time at Georgetown.
We chose the Park Hyatt Washington to host our reception after a quick trip to DC last April. We fell in love with the modern décor and the absolutely scrumptious-looking menu. We’d visited a handful of other venues, but were felt a little lukewarm about all of them. We hadn’t initially thought we’d go see the Park Hyatt, but after a tip from Cindy we decided to check it out. After 10 minutes of looking around and meeting with the director of events, Michael Deltette, we knew we’d found our spot. I guess sometimes it’s just that easy – when you know, you just know!
Now, that wasn’t the case with my wedding dress, but more on that in a later blog post! Thank you for reading, and I’m so excited to share more of my wedding journey with you!
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Thanks so much to Frederika for stopping by today, and to the gals over at A. Dominick Events for allowing us to be a part of this amazing contest. We can't wait to see how the wedding turns out!
[Photo Credits: 1 personal photo, 2 Gabe Aceves, 3 Park Hyatt Washington]
