Glen Echo Park Carnival Wedding
Carrie and Jon first met me at the now-defunct Murky Coffee in Arlington in mid-January, 2009. They were planning a September, 2009 wedding for about 100 guests with a vintage amusement park feel. Carrie lived in Bethesda, but Jon lived in Frederick and Carrie did not have a car. They wanted peanuts and popcorn; barbeque and games. They had already picked out the Bumper Car Pavilion at Glen Echo Park as the reception site and Blue Sky Five as the band, but desperately needed a church that would allow their minister to perform the ceremony. Shortly after I was hired, we found out that Jon’s next job for the Army Corp of Engineers was in Puerto Rico, and he would leave in March. So they moved the wedding date up to April 4; giving us about 11 weeks to plan. Carrie’s matron of honor Rebecca went to work on the wedding website, paper flowers and stationery. I went to work on finding vendors and the church. Carrie went to work on finding a dress and testing cupcakes. Jon went to work getting ready to move them both to Puerto Rico. Time went on, as it does. There were a lot of emails and dinner meetings. Carrie and I would spend whole days together, in my car going to tastings, dress fittings, and warehouses filled with carnival games. Carrie purchased a lot of things online, including the vintage gumball machine and the clear drink buckets that we filled with colorful Jones sodas and used as table centerpieces.
In the end, we had a sunny but windy day. The tents for the caterer wouldn’t stay up, but luckily the folks at Glen Echo let the catering staff move in to a nearby building. We had a cart set up with popcorn and peanuts and cotton candy adorned with custom stickers featuring cartoon renderings of Carrie & Jon. We had peach basket toss, coke bottle toss and ball roll, furnished by Talk of the Town Events. We had glass jars filled with Mary Janes, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Sugar Daddys and rock candy. The menu included bar-be-que from Capital Que and complements by Windows Catering.Georgetown Cupcake was the tasting winner and they customized the desserts to include the monogram we used. The guests marveled over all the details and enjoyed swing dance lessons after lunch. Stephanie Ascari from Cleverly Candid took these amazing photos – and that is how we ended up in this issue of The Knot!
Postscript: Carrie & Jon honeymooned with a cruise to Alaska, and their first child, a girl, was born in the end of December.
