A Blue and White Al Fresco Summer Wedding

Melissa Hammam
April 27, 2023
Categories: Real Weddings, Seasonal Wedding Trend, Summer, The Blog, Traditional Elegance

This is a blue and white celebration done oh-so-right. A. Griffin Events designed a day that feels like a fairytale come to life, and lush floral design by Edge Floral was the exclamation mark on the elegance. All the incredible details are artfully captured in imagery by Eric Kelley Photography, visit the full gallery for a closer look.

From A. Griffin Events… This al fresco dinner in the Linden Grove is rarely seen at summer Meridian House weddings. Chancing summer storms in DC is equivalent to playing Russian Roulette with your wedding, so the safer path is to opt for a tented soiree. However, the risk was worth it to Danielle and Mike, who had rescheduled their wedding three times. On the wedding day, the threat of a dreaded summer storm moved their ceremony indoors to the gallery, Danielle’s favorite room in the house. The storm passed during the ceremony and guests moved throughout the house and gardens for cocktail hour. Their specialty cocktail, a play on a whiskey sour, was topped with a stencil of an emu as a nod to one of their early dates at the DC Zoo. The couple’s two rescue dogs, Darwin and Walter, were the highlight of cocktail hour. Lovingly watched by the Furever and Always team, the pups were attired in handmade tuxes ordered from a Ukranian artist right before the war began in 2022. We’d given up hope of them coming once the war broke out, but the artist surprised us and shipped them in time for the wedding. As the sun began to set, guests entered the Linden Grove for dinner. Candle-laden glass orbs dripped from the trees while tall taper candles reached up from the summer blooms in hues of blue and soft whites ran along the center of the tables. Hand-made ceramic plates in hues of soft blue and mint stacked on the table were topped with a ribbon-tied five-page menu. While the decor was stunning, the food was the centerpiece of the evening. Each course touched on a favorite experience and memory in the couple’s relationship. The guests returned to Danielle’s favorite room, the Gallery, for her favorite course: dessert! A stunning display on a gold etagere accompanied the three-tier square marbled cake. Handmade truffles displayed on silver trays accompanied the European coffee station.

From the bride and groom…Due to COVID, we ended up spending 3.5 years planning our wedding! Our vision evolved throughout the process as we went through three COVID-driven date changes and one renovation-driven venue change, but one thing we always knew was that we wanted our reception to center around sharing an elegant, multi-course “tasting menu” dinner with our guests that would evoke memories of dates at our favorite restaurants. Our color palette was light blue, green, and white with touches of soft pink. Our style vision was an elegant, al fresco garden party. We wanted our guests to feel as though they had stepped off the city streets of DC and into an enchanted, European-inspired evening. The Linden Grove at Meridian House with its tall, lush green trees was the perfect setting for our vision. We both love trying new restaurants, and we really wanted to give our guests the experience of an elaborate, delicious, and beautifully plated dinner. We worked with the team at Susan Gage to design a custom 5-course tasting menu that included gougères, a gazpacho tower, a spring burrata salad, sea bass, and hanger steak. For dessert, we offered two flavors of wedding cake plus a trio of ice cream sandwiches, butterscotch pots de crème, Nanaimo bars, vanilla and lemon panna cotta, and an assortment of miniature cookies and brownies. Over the course of our 3.5 years of planning, we adopted two rescue dogs, Darwin and Walter. We couldn’t imagine not having our dogs at our wedding, and thanks to the amazing handlers at Furever & Fur Always, they were there to greet guests as they arrived for the ceremony. To fit the black-tie dress code, they both wore custom tuxedos. These tuxedos ended up being one of the most special parts of the wedding, as they were hand-made in and shipped from HappyDog Pet Couture in the Ukraine during the start of the war there. To show our support and appreciation, we pinned Ukrainian flags on their lapels. In honor of our dogs, they each had their own signature drink. We adopted Darwin in September of 2020 and since then had planned to have a Darwin Sour as our specialty cocktail, as a play on Danielle’s favorite – whiskey sours. When we unexpectedly decided to adopt Walter less than three months before the wedding, we added in Walter’s Single Malt Scotch Bar to feature several of Mike’s favorite scotches. To make light of our many COVID-induced date changes, we listed our four wedding dates on napkins at cocktail hour – with the three postponed dates crossed out and the final date, June 11, 2023, in large font. We also framed copies of the numerous save-the-dates, date change announcements, and invitations that we sent out over the several-year planning journey, and the etagere from which guests collected their escort cards was decorated with framed photos from our July 2020 elopement.

Our ceremony was family-centric. Mike escorted Danielle’s mom down the aisle, Danielle’s dad walked her down the aisle, Danielle’s brother officiated the ceremony, Mike’s daughter was Danielle’s maid of honor, and Mike’s son was his Best Man. Our favorite moment was looking out during the ceremony and seeing for the first time all of our friends and family who, after 3.5 years, were finally all together in one place, many of whom we hadn’t seen since pre-COVID. We found stunning sky blue plates from Something Vintage that were the perfect complement to our flowers and really elevated our tablescape. Tell us about your flowers, your gown, your favors, your cake, etc. We worked with our florist to fill Meridian House’s stunning Linden Grove with an abundance of naturally arranged hydrangeas, roses, and other florals that further drew out the enchanted forest feeling. We also hung hundreds of tea lights in small glass spheres in between the trees – when the sun went down, the twinkling lights made the grove feel absolutely magical. My gown was made-to-order from Mira Zwillinger. I bought a gown from a different designer in February 2019 for our May 2020 wedding that was postponed due to COVID, but in the intervening years I fell head over heels for Mira’s designs and couldn’t imagine getting married in anything else. The gown was hand-crafted in Israel and included hundreds of rose appliques, which made it perfectly suited to our garden setting. Our favors were our favorite chocolates, fleur de sal caramels from local DC confectionary J. Chocolatier, and our cake was from our favorite local bakery, Buttercream Bakeshop.