why Boulder?

Why not?! Boulder is where we live and a beautiful and amazing place.

Originally, we'd planned on marrying in DC or Northern Virginia, near where I grew up and my immediate family all live. Then things got complicated. My grandfather passed away last spring (April 2009), and we realized that having him there was what had been tying us to DC and without that we could be married anywhere!

There are two main reasons we chose Boulder, 1) it's where we live and can easily plan things in a hands-on way without having to pay for any travel expenses beyond a tank of gas and 2) the cost of hosting the wedding here will be significantly less per person than in DC or northern VA, so we're able to invite more people. The downfall of getting married out here is that it is virtually a destination wedding, even though we live here, we're asking the vast majority of our guests to travel here to celebrate with us.

Does the blog-o-sphere have any input on destination weddings? Is it somehow weird or rude to ask people to travel to you, rather than going to where most of them are? I figure that it's our wedding, and that everyone can plan their own wedding as they wish.

[caption id="attachment_683" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="original venue, Sequoia - Georgetown, DC"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_318" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="actual venue, St. Julien Hotel - Boulder, CO"][/caption]

River Bend Golf and Country Club

My aunt and uncle are members of River Bend Golf and Country Club in Great Falls, Virginia. It is about 15 to 20 minutes from my parents house, and about 10 from Great Falls National Park.

They're redecorating it next winter. Sadly, it is too small for our needs. Only 90 people for the ceremony if it needs to be held inside. Very affordable though, but also very do-it-yourself. There really wasn't a planner, just a site coordinator.


the outside, front entrance



the pretty foyer, looking back towards the welcome desk


there's a piano in there!

the "rotunda" area, the corner of the L-shaped room we would have the small leg and corner of (the larger leg is the club's main dining area and can't be rented out)

Out and about in Old Town, Alexandrea

While I’m home in DC I tried to meet up with a few of my girlfriends. Especially Whitney (WAJR), she and I are birthday twins (though I’m a year and a few hours earlier). We went out for a wander in Old Town yesterday (Friday). We looked at sample dresses at Gossypia, ate falafel, looked at cookware, saw Michelle Obama’s dress at Talbots, sadly it didn’t fit either of us and was a little outside both of our budgets.

WAJR and Andrew married this past August in Staunton, Virginia, Andrew’s home town. Here are a few photos from their wedding ceremony, reception, and hanging out in hotel rooms afterward:







pretty flowers (while looking for my purse after the reception)



“after party” with some HS people and their SOs


then going to play Apples to Apples with Maria, and WAJR and Roo’s UVA buddies


Will and Will

Sequoia Restaurant, 30th and K, Georgetown

Our number one venue in Washington, DC is Sequoia, in Georgetown. It is apparently named after the presidential yacht, not the tree. Though the yacht might be named after the tree... Anyway, here are the photos. It is SO pretty. Here's a review showing what it looks like in the winter: review.

It's super pretty. You can see the Kennedy Center looking down the river, and you can sorta see Georgetown looking up (or just the Key Bridge)[sorry, no photos of that view]. Across the Potomac is Roosevelt Island, a National Park. Here are my pictures:

^ yes, that IS the Kennedy Center

Oh yeah, we can rent the WHOLE patio for ourselves!

Logistically, it'll be very interesting. There's no rental fee, if we meet the minimum (no problem), but there is an extra fee to rent out the patio. If we don't rent out the patio, re risk gawkers being seated out there, and that would be lame. Also, because the bow of the restaurant (there's a mild nautical them) sticks out over the promenade, and can get some really harsh sunlight, the event coordinator strongly suggests that we draw the curtains during the ceremony (and try and time it between security fly-overs along the river, where helicopters like to skim the Potomac while playing leapfrog with each other).

There's also a really plush private room off the main restaurant that would still be open to the public, it seats 40 in big leather chairs and sorta looks over where we would put the dance floor. For lunch, the coordinator says that she doubts anyone will want to sit there and that we'd  have the main restaurant, bar, and upper patio (the lower patio can't be rented at all, but it's really a bar/grill and much less fancy-shmancy) all to ourselves!

We have a date and a rabbi, we just need a dress, a suit, oh year, and a venue

But I'm starting to burn out on wedding crap already! Poop.

I started looking at wedding crap about a year after we officially moved in together, in May 2008. Now, after about 6 weeks of being officially engaged, I'm burning out. Thankfully we've got the part that we really care about set, our rabbi. He was happy to have free plane tickets (my parents have a gajillion frequent flyer miles) and 2 nights of lodging. We'll let him pick the dates/airports for his flights and then he can vacation in the DC area too.

Potential venues need to be contacted. I need to go visit them with my mom and the dude while I'm home for a week around the first night of Passover (first full week of March). So far we've got 4 major contenders, the DC JCC, Airlie Center (one of the secure locations outside of DC, in Virginia), Algonkian Regional Park, and The Atrium at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="Meadowlark Gardens - The Atrium"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Algonkian Regional Park - Meeting and Events Center"][/caption]

To keep me going for the next month, I asked my dad to buy and send me copies of some local wedding magazines so that I can look at the advertisements from home instead of the ones for where I live (Colorado), which aren't very helpful in planning from a distance. He's in advertising, so he thought it was GREAT that I wanted him to buy me some trashy reading just to read the ads. Maybe he'll have a look in the magazines too.

My dad also told me that my mom was a very "whatever" kind of bride. Ben and I have decided that we're not having any attendants and that we don't want to write our own vows. We're just fine with picking out a bad-ass ketubah and having that read out loud. I kind of want my dad to read Oh, The Places You'll Go and have someone (Ben's sister, who gave me the book) read a passage from Tuesdays With Morrie and an excerpt from the Mass. Supreme Ct. decision upholding same sex marriages 'cause I think that rocks.