As you can imagine, I have a lot of friends who work in the wedding industry, and only one wedding to go around.  If I could, and my now husband would put up with it, I would get married three times at least just to be able to work with all the wonderful vendors I know in this area.  Alas, I am sure he would not put up with it and so I had to choose.  It was very difficult, but I ended up with the best wedding team a girl could ever hope for.

I have listed everyone I worked with with at the end of this post.  They were all fabulous and I highly recommend every one of them, so please follow links to their websites and hire them for all of your weddings (especially if you are lucky enough to have three or more!).

But I need to say a few words about all of them, because it really was a fantastic wedding and I hardly had to do anything but show up.  Turns out I have a lot to say, so this blog is going to come in part 1 and part 2.

First of all, my hair and makeup team.  I am not a girlie girl and you don’t want to let me near a hair dryer or a makeup kit, so I knew I needed some extra help.  I have been going to Jennifer Erk Reed, at Studio 61, for about five years.  I first got her card at a wedding I was videotaping because she did such a fantastic job on the bride’s hair.  She does a great job cutting and coloring my hair on a regular basis, but she really blew it out of the park with the hair style for my wedding!  She also did the mother of the groom’s hair, who looked gorgeous from head to toe, but especially the head.

And, of course, I loved my makeup as well.  It was certainly not something I could’ve done myself, so I hired the lovely and talented Kim Giammaria, with Beauty Mark.  Even though I was running late due to - you guessed it - traffic, she was very calm helping get my makeup done half an hour before my ceremony was going to start, and it looked great the whole day through.

In the following video, I made sure to include live audio from both the procession and the recession because Eric Waters, a guitarist with MSE Productions, did such a fantastic job.  I married a Robinson so the recession song was particularly key and, even though it wasn’t on his playlist, he learned it especially for my wedding.

As you can see, I shortened the video of the ceremony considerably. Not so in the Blu-Ray disc we have at home. It was such a beautiful ceremony that I kept in almost every moment for our own video. Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, the minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fairfax, did such a fantastic job writing a very personalized ceremony. We had met with her several times before the wedding day and she really brought so many unique-to-us tidbits into the ceremony that Bart and I were both on the verge of tears the entire time. And yes, I giggle when I am trying not to cry, so if any of that comes across in the video of my vows, it’s a nervous habit.

The last vendor I have room for in part one, is someone else who really added beauty to the day. I have been friends with and known Katie Martin, of Elegance & Simplicity, for six or seven years. I have videotaped so many weddings where her team did the floral arrangements that I just had to ask her to do my wedding. Now, I need to point out, or Katie will kill me, that the sea grass and shell on the podium behind us during the ceremony was not her work. (It just happened to be in our church on the day of our ceremony.) We were conservative with our floral order and just had Katie do the two bouquets, which were gorgeous beyond belief, and the boutonnieres. For our reception, we wanted something eco-friendly and alive, so Katie suggested live, potted herbs for the centerpieces, which was a fantastic suggestion especially since they doubled as party favors.

Wedding Team:
Hair: Jen Erk, Studio 61
Makeup:  Kim Giammaria, Beauty Mark
Flowers:  Elegance & Simplicity
Minister: Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, UUCF
Ceremony Music:  Eric Waters, MSE Productions
Photographer:  Kristi Odom, Kristi Odom Photography
Videographer:  Michael Alvarez, Jessica Pi Productions
Cake:  MallowDrama
Deejay:  A Sound Plan
Reception Venue:  Stonewall Golf Club

The reception was at the Decatur House. I love videotaping there, especially when they have the outdoor tent set up. It’s a great space and provides a beautiful backdrop for a beautiful day.

This couple had a great wedding, but with such a top notch team of vendors, I can’t imagine how it could’ve been anything but perfect.

Contact Tom Van Veen:
thomas@documentaryassociates.com
301-758-3085
www.documentaryassociates.com

Contact Elegance & Simplicity:

301.656.5560
800.768.8814
Twitter: GreenWed + EcoBeautiful
www.eleganceandsimplicity.com
www.eco-beautifulweddings.com

To live stream the event, I set up one camera to be the live feed to the web, for all the friends and family tuning in at home. I also videotaped with a second camera, which gave me more flexibility for editing later. When you live stream, you need the camera to be connected to a computer which is online, so that camera really can’t move around much. Since the bride and groom also wanted their video edited, I recorded both the footage from the streaming camera as well as from a second, mobile, camera.

The result? Well, here’s what they had to say:
“I could not imagine a better videography vendor! Jessica provided top-notch quality, consultative, personal, creative, and timely service. Through the entire process of the initial planning sessions to logistics to the big day to the final product of a lovely video, everything was smooth. My husband and I watched the video and cried and laughed over and over when we received it, and we will enjoy it for years to come. I will recommend Jessica Pi Productions to anyone who needs a videographer.”
-Stacy & Damian

The outdoor ceremony was lovely, and the bride and groom could not have been happier. Their photographer, Hyon Smith, did a fantastic job capturing the mood and feel of the day’s events, and was great to work with.

The floral and event design of Holly Heider and her team was absolutely amazing, and deserving of it’s own video. Check out the video below to see how she covered every little detail, and added little touches to make the day extra special.

Katie is a very busy woman.  Not only is she a fabulous wedding planner and an amazing florist under Elegance & Simplicity, she recently published a new online magazine - Eco Beautiful Weddings, is working on getting her third book completed and published, and runs the DC Green Wedding Consortium, of which I am proud to be a member.

Photo By Jennifer Domenick of Love Life Images

I recently asked Katie a few questions about what makes an Eco Beautiful wedding.

What makes you a “green” vendor?

Everything from our wind-powered workshop and website to the flowers that we purchase are eco-friendly elements of an overall green mission that we have instilled in all of our employees and the way we run our business.

Being green is not just about our supply chain, it is about our outreach to the community locally and the environment at large.  We donate to local schools and help nourish local gardens from our in-house composting program and invest in international carbon offsetting programs along with other incredible forward-thinking and world changing organizations.

We also educate and help other wedding professionals about becoming a green!  We also are a source of eco-friendly wedding inspiration for brides around the world with the premiere of our new magazine Eco-Beautiful Weddings.  Our goal is to change the way brides plan their weddings from the beginning.  Being green does not mean wearing hemp on your wedding day and Eco-Beautiful Weddings helps show brides how to go eco-couture on their wedding day!

What are the top 3 things a bride can do to “green” her wedding?

1. Reduce the amount of out-of-town guests that will be traveling to your wedding.  Transportation is the biggest “eco-sin” when it comes to weddings!
2. Don’t serve red meat at your wedding.  Serve fish, chicken/fowl and/or vegetarian/vegan options instead. The amount of energy it takes to produce and digest red meat is staggering compared to the other options.
3. Choose décor and fashion items that come from renewable and free-trade and fair- wage resources.

As in all of your wedding planning visits…ask questions to see how green your vendors are.  You may be the catalyst to making a change, one vendor at a time.

Photo By Jennifer Domenick of Love Life Images

Why is having a green wedding important?  What is the impact, if any?

Having a green wedding is about putting a fist up in the air at the wedding industrial complex as a whole.  It is saying that you want your wedding to make a difference.  You want your wedding to make a statement, to be a journey in education for you and your guests.  It means that your big day is giving back to a greater purpose.  If each engaged couple made at least one change in their wedding planning process, the world and the environment can literally be changed.  The impact is priceless and without measure.

Why do you care?

There are several reasons why I care about the environment and impacting the wedding industry.  One is that I come from a very different background than many players in the wedding industry.  I used to be a missionary in the Dominican Republic, which is one of the greenest countries in the world by necessity.  I am sure, at some point, if people do not change their ways in general – we will all need to be green by necessity.  After coming back from living in the slums of Santo Domingo, I knew (no matter where I worked) that I could not longer just live like I had before in conspicuous consumption.  So, I decided to make a difference in the wedding industry.  I soon found my job to make a difference to be harder than I thought.  Waste is the status quo in the wedding industry.  So I decided to not really tell my brides that I was making a difference and just did it on my own.  I researched all of my vendors – making sure they had a soul and a purpose behind what they do on wedding days.  I wanted to find the vendors that were making a difference in their own way.  Whether it was small or large statements, all of my vendors were either giving back to the community or making a difference in their art through their supply chain or just plain being innovative or different.

In the end, I just care, period.  I am a wife and a mother and I want a better world for myself and my son and everyone really!

You can read more about her experience, and view some photos from the class at: The Bliss Blog

Click here to find out more about Christi and her shop, Bergeron’s Flowers & Events.

I just completed a great wedding video for Cristina and Ben, who got married this summer at Meadowlark Gardens, in Vienna.  As usual, the Atrium was a great venue for a wedding and fortunately we had the perfect weather for an outdoor ceremony.

Cristina and Ben were great to work with.  You can view the video we did for them below.

A Wedding at Meadowlark Gardens from Jessica Piscitelli on Vimeo.

Cristina and Ben had this to say after receiving their DVDs:

“From our first meeting, we felt very comfortable with Jessica. We did not meet with any other videographers because we knew she would do an outstanding job. Throughout the planning process she was very flexible and easy to work with, quick to respond to e-mails, and on the day of our wedding, was very unobtrusive, fun, and professional. Once we viewed our DVD for the first time, I cried at least three times! She captured every single moment that I remembered and cherished from that day and did it with seamless transitions, perfect matching to the music, and such class! We are very happy with her work and would recommend her to anyone considering a videographer for any special occasion.”

Gail Dobberfuhl, of Blooms in Reston, was kind enough to refer me for wedding videography.  I have worked a lot of weddings in which Blooms provided the flowers, and I always fall in love with the bouquets!  Gail has been listed as one of the area’s best florists by Washingtonian Magazine for the past several years, and you can really tell why when you’ve seen her flower arrangements.  Reston Floral Designs now owns Blooms and their new name is Blooms Reston Floral Design.  You can check out their website at BloomsReston.com

In addition to working with a beautiful bride and groom, getting to capture a great venue with great décor, I had the added pleasure of working with a fun, real, and natural photographer who I always have a great time working with.  You can see more of her work here: marthafitzsimon.com

Or contact Martha FitzSimon Photography - Real. Natural. Fun.  - at 703.273.0077

Lastly, I got to meet a new planner, well, new to me.  Lisa Borchert, from Detail By Detail was the wedding planner that day.  It’s always great to meet new people and the wedding couldn’t have been nicer, so you know she had something to do with that.