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On September 20, 1997, Dan and I were married at Algonkian Regional Park in Sterling, Virginia. We have been promising since then to post some of the photos we got from the wedding. Most of these are the product of our photographer, Jane Levine. We went out of our way to find someone who could take candid shots, and would be willing to make that be the majority of the photos. We are very happy with her work. A few of the photos were provided by friends Fran and Doug.

After many promises and much time on the learning curve with our new scanner, we finally have the photos ready to go of the wedding and the dress!

If you want a closer look at any of the photos (except the original one of Betsy in front of the gazebo), just click on the photo, and you'll get the big picture!

And now, on with the show!

Why Algonkian?

Algonkian had a couple of advantages. They included a very reasonable rental fee, a max of approximately 200 in the meeting rooms we used (we needed space for 175), flexibility on the catering we could bring in, a gazebo (Betsy's wanted an outdoor ceremony forever) and on-site cabins.

Since we live in Maryland, the cabin was quite nice - no commute in the morning. We rented the next biggest one to hold our rehersal dinner, and for the Bride's party to stay in overnight.

We arrived late the Friday before the wedding and whipped up a barbecue for the close family and friends with assistance from Jeanmarie, David and Jaki especially. The parents met for the first time, and the wedding party relaxed before the big day. Did we mention the hot tub?

It wasn't too bad in the morning, except for the rain, and the low 80 degree temperatures. But the bride remained calm, and off to the site we went, to decorate.

In this original photo (no close-up, sorry!), you can see the park area and the gazebo, which was fairly small and plain. We hung garlands of off-white roses, gathered ivory tulle and bow ribbons in blue and red all around the gazebo.

A wreath was hung in the center, over the entrance. Most of the decorations were created by Betsy over the last couple of months prior to the wedding. Yards of wired ribbon were used, as well as 20 or so yards of tulle and lots of gold buttons. The reception site was decorated with the assistance of Jeanmarie, David, Frank, Kelly, Amy, Laurie, Sue, Larry, Tad, Tom and Barb.

The centerpieces were small baskets purchased at MJDesigns filled with miniature roses in white, pink and red. There is no good picture of the head table, which was similarly decorated. All of the baskets were trimmed with matching red and blue bows, and were also filled with Baby's Breath and caspia.

We had a brief, mad dash out to the supermarket and the craft store when someone suggested that we needed more tables in the room. We wound up with a few extra baskets (not decorated), but in the end these were placed on the buffet table with the food, and no-one was the wiser.

At 1:15pm, Betsy was chased off the dressing room, to get into her dress. For "something old", she wore the pearls her grandmother gave her; "something new" was the shoes. The "something borrowed" was the bow in her hair (which was originally made for Laurie's wedding, with different flowers in the center), and "something blue" happened to be the ribbons on the petticoat. She also had a penny in one shoe and a sixpence in the other, just to be sure!

With a little time off at the mirror and some assistance from her attendants, she managed to be ready to go in plenty of time for 2:00 pm (the declared start of the ceremony), In the true spirit of less than perfect weddings, we ran a little late.

While it left us with plenty of time to primp and to test out the dress and shoes one more time (waltzing with the minister was amusing!) and to see a few visitors before the main event, the Groom and Best Man arrived somewhat later than expected. Something about purchasing a shirt... We actually got underway at about 2:30, with the groom leading a ten car caravan into the parking lot.

Our flowers were quite nice, provided by Flower Depot. All of Betsy's attendants carried baskets of sweetheart roses, mini carnations, bachelor buttons, baby's breath, caspia and alstroemeria.

Betsy's bouquet was made up of eighteen budding white roses, baby's breath, caspia and an ivy trailer that is presently sprouted on our window sill at home, to be planted next spring. The florist was even kind enough to throw in a last-minute throwing bouquet, as the bride ran out of time for making a silk version herself.

We gave out two kinds of favors: Tiny baskets of marigold seeds which were collected from our garden and about a dozen spider plant babies that had to be trimmed off the parent plants when we moved into our house. They were very well received, and kept us from having to worry about the "no rice, no seeds" rule of the park.

Our ceremony, which we wrote together (cribbing a little from some of our friends' ceremonies) included a wine ceremony and a sash ceremony. Since neither one of us is particularly observant in our respective religions, we decided to write an intentionally secular set of vows. The ceremony (most of it) is included in Part Two. The tartan is Air Force, since Dan is an active member of the Maryland Air National Guard, which is part of the U.S. Air Force. (The sash ceremony was suggested by our friend, Allison, who plays the tenor drum for Dunloggin Drums, one of the local area Scottish Pipe bands.)

[Part 1]
On to Part Two: The Wedding
[Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

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