Photo via The Washington Post

We’re so very excited that same-sex couples in the District of Columbia can FINALLY apply for marriage licenses, starting today. Of course they still need to wait until May 9th to actually tie the knot but today is a big day for the LGBT community! Click here to see some photos from the Washington Post on the activities at the DC Superior Court today.

Here at Wish we love to help all kinds of couples with their wedding celebrations. If you’re not quite ready to hire a planner but are looking for some advice, here are some wonderful same-sex-friendly wedding resources:

SoYoureEngayged.com
GayWeddings.com
GayRites.com
TheKnot.com’s Real Weddings
Rainbow Wedding Network

If you participate on Twitter, here are some great folks to follow:

SoYoureEngayged, resource
Bernadette Smith, wedding planner
Rainbow Wedding Network, resource

Of course don’t forget to follow me on Twitter too!

Congratulations again!

For all of you ladies and gents out there who love swooning over all things wedding, I have a late holiday gift for you!  DC DailyCandy – the area’s source for the hippest, latest, coolest pop culture trends in the area – has come out with a new daily e-mail feature just for brides!  Welcome, Bride Buzz!

I’m a big fan of DC Daily Candy so I immediately signed up for Bride Buzz when it was announced a few months back.    I had completely forgotten about it and was pleasantly surprised to receive my first dose of Bridal Buzz  Monday morning, featuring an oh-so-cute cake topper!

Unlike Daily Candy, Bride Buzz is not specific to the DC area (yet!?!?), but rather features vendors, items and ideas from across the country.   DailyCandy started out as a New York City-based newsletter to share pop-culture trends and tidbits with its e-readers.   It soon expanded to a national site and has since started sites (with free subscriptions available!) to several major cities in the U.S., including Washington DC.   The daily e-mails include everything from trend features to coupons…which have helped with my sugar intake at places such as Red Velvet Cupcakery down by DC’s Verizon Center (LOVE their salted Peanut Butter Cupcakes!).

While Bride Buzz is just getting its legs, I’m hoping it will be as informative, entertaining and inspiring as DailyCandy has been!    If you subscribe to Bride Buzz, you’ll receive a daily dose of bridal eye candy in your e-mail box.  You can also check them out online for past daily features, including my favorite feature of all bridal websites:  real weddings.

For all of you newly-engaged folks out there, welcome!  I hope our site and places like Bride Buzz will inspire you to create a wedding day that is perfectly charming, personal and swoon-worthy!  And for our regular blog followers, I hope none of you made a New Year’s Resolution to “stop-surfing-the-web-for-all-things-wedding.”  If you did, I apologize in advance because this certainly isn’t going to help to that end!

Seen our great posts about Adorn rental jewelry? Thinking of trying it out for your wedding day? I got a wonderful email from PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com (a great site, by the way), who is hosting a giveaway with Adorn! Here’s what their email said:

“On September 1st, our $2500 Jewelry Rental Giveaway will launch. We’re giving away a $2500 fine jewelry rental from Adorn Brides. With it, the winner will be able to rent from an amazing array of fine jewelry for her wedding day.

With the $2500 Adorn Brides rental, the winner could choose a fancy diamond necklace with almost 8 carats of diamonds with matching diamond earrings and diamond necklaces and earrings for her bridesmaids to wear. And that is just one of the options!

The contest closes on October 31 – and the winner will be selected on November 2nd.”

Click here for more information and to enter! If you don’t win the contest, please be sure you still get your 10% Wish discount by using coupon code PVT8NOSL.

PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com is running a contest for all you recessionistas out there!  They’re giving away a $2,000 Marriott Honeymoon TravelCard redeemable at any Marriott hotel, anywhere in the world!  The contest runs through June 30th and that TravelCard can be used for anything at the hotel including room nights, spa treatments, golf, and even breakfast in bed.

Enter once per email address per day using the contest entry form.  That means go back every day!

Love WeddingWire like we do?  Obsessed with Facebook like we are?  Now you can access the WeddingWire Vendor Catalog through Facebook!  You can also create a personal wedding blog that can be shared with your friends.  Click here to check it out!

While you’re on Facebook, do a search for “Wish Special Events” and become a fan!

Wish is now a featured vendor on the latest greatest wedding planning resource site.  This one’s a little different from the rest and we’re proud to be included!  SoYoureEnGAYged.com is the premiere place for those of you planning same-sex weddings.

We’re so excited for Kelly of Two Brides/Film Noir Photography and Lara at Lara Swanson Photography.  These two ladies have worked countless hours to make the site a reality.  They’re super excited to share their creation with the world and I am too.  Check it out and leave a comment or two.

While we haven’t had many inquiries for these types of celebrations, we’re certainly open to the idea and are happy to be a part of any couple’s event.  Click here to check out our profile.  Hopefully this site will prove to be a useful resource!

Are you looking for a simple, stunning, and reasonably priced wedding gown?  It seems foolish to throw away thousands of dollars on a garment you’ll only wear once.  Plus if you’re not into beading and lace there aren’t a ton of simple and inexpensive options out there.

A new website, 300 Dresses, aims to be the solution!  All the gowns on their site are under $300 and can be bought in any size and three different colors (white, ivory, champagne).  There are zoomed-in photos on the website so you can see the quality construction.  Plus they are made to order which means you enter your exact measurements!  Alterations, if needed, will be as inexpensive as possible.  Here are a few of the gowns you can find on their site.

Would you believe this dress is only $299?

This one too!

Yeah, even this one:

Check it out for yourself!  If you’ve been looking on eBay or Craigslist, why not get a brand new gown that’s made just for you?  Odds are it’ll be the same price or cheaper (plus you won’t have to get it cleaned).

If you’ve opened a bridal magazine or read a blog in the past year, you’ve probably seen a manzanita tree.  These are scraggly branches that lend themselves well to hanging things like votives, photographs, or cards.  Here’s one of the most famous examples of their use:

Thanks to Wedding Chicks, we now have easy pictorial DIY instructions explaining how to get the branch to stand by itself.  It also explains how to make the branch into a ‘Wishing Tree’ where your guests can leave their message of hope for you and your new hubs.  Click here for the full instructions.

If you decide to make one of these for yourself, be sure to send us a photo and we’ll post it on the blog!

Do you read the Cake Wrecks blog?  Of course you do.  Who doesn’t?  This hilarious blog features ridiculous grocery store cakes (even some wrecked up professional ones) and pokes fun at the crazy bakers who made them.  Here’s one of the most famous ones from the site:

Recently, wedding cakes were featured on Cake Wrecks.  Here’s a teaser just to give you the idea:

Check out the whole blog post to read all about it and see more photos!  While you’re at it, check this one out too.

Over the past couple years we’ve featured many wedding venues in Washington, DC and surrounding Northern Virginia and Maryland.  These are all venues that we’ve worked weddings at.  Typically whenever there is a place we’re unfamiliar with we’ll scope it out well in advance of the bride’s big day.  We take notes of the details and photos of the spaces and share them with our readers on the blog.

Photo by Greg Gibson

Since Christmas is a popular time to pop the question, we figured it would make sense to compile a list of popular area venues for newly engaged brides-to-be.  Each list is organized by type then by location.  Hopefully this will help narrow down some of the wedding venue options out there.  Here are the Venue Spotlights that we’ve compiled thus far:

Historic/Garden:
The Carnegie Institute (Washington, DC)
The Atrium at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens (Vienna, VA)
The Manor House at Linden Springs (Reston, VA)
The Wilson-Farr House (Fairfax, VA)
The Lee-Fendall House (Old Town Alexandria, VA)
Woodend Sanctuary (Chevy Chase, MD)
The Newton White Mansion (Mitchellville, MD)

Hotels/Clubs/Ballrooms:
The Willard Intercontinental (Washington, DC)
The National Press Club (Washington, DC)
The Hay-Adams Hotel (Washington, DC)
Tyson’s Corner Marriott (Tyson’s Corner, VA)
The Sheraton Reston (Reston, VA)

Restaurants:
Sequoia Restaurant (Georgetown, DC)
2941 Restaurant (Falls Church, VA)
Famoso Restaurant & M Cafe (Bethesda, MD)

Museums:
The International Spy Museum / Zola (Washington, DC)
The Newseum (Washington, DC)

Eastern Shore/Bay:
The Chesapeake Bay Beach Club (Stevensville, MD)
Queenstown Harbor River House (Queenstown, MD)

Non-traditional:
Glen Echo Park (Glen Echo, MD)
Signature Theater (Shirlington, VA)

Here’s a list of the venues we’ve featured as part of our Real Weddings:

Historic/Garden:
The Decatur House (Washington, DC)
The Red Cross Headquarters (Washington, DC)
Newton White Mansion – and here – and here – and here – (Mitchellville, MD)
Mount Airy Mansion (Upper Marlboro, MD)
Woodend Sanctuary – and here – (Chevy Chase, MD)
The Mansion at Strathmore – and here – (Bethesda, MD)
Brookside Gardens (Wheaton, MD)
Stronghold Mansion (Sugarloaf Mountain, MD)
Collingwood Library (Alexandria, VA)
River Farm (Alexandria, VA)
Old Town Hall (Fairfax, VA)
The Atrium at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens – and here – (Vienna, VA)
Oatlands Historic House & Gardens (Leesburg, VA)
The Thomas Birkby House (Leesburg, VA)
Raspberry Plain (Leesburg, VA)
Whitehall Manor – and here – (Bluemont, VA)

Hotels/Clubs/Ballrooms:
The Fairmont Hotel (Washington, DC)
The Galleria at Lafayette Square (Washington, DC)
The St. Regis Hotel (Washington, DC)
The Ronald Reagan Building – and here – (Washington, DC)
The Westin Grand (Washington, DC)
Hotel Monaco (Washington, DC)
Fort Myer Officer’s Club (Arlington, VA)
The Westin Arlington Gateway (Arlington, VA)
Top of the Town (Arlington, VA)
The Sheraton National (Arlington, VA)
The Hyatt Regency Bethesda (Bethesda, MD)
The Hyatt Fair Lakes (Fair Lakes, VA)
Old Hickory Golf Club (Woodbridge, VA)
Hidden Creek Country Club – and here – (Reston, VA)
River Creek Club (Leesburg, VA)
The Hilton Washington Dulles (Dulles, VA)
Foxchase Manor – and here – and here – (Manassas, VA)
La Fontaine Bleu (Glen Burnie, MD)

Restaurants:
Old Ebbitt Grill (Washington, DC)

Museums:
The Torpedo Factory (Old Town Alexandria, VA)

Eastern Shore/Bay:
Queenstown Harbor River House (Queenstown, MD)
The Chesapeake Bay Beach Club (Stevensville, MD)
Kent Manor Inn (Stevensville, MD)

Outside of DC:
Tavern on the Green (New York, NY)

If you didn’t see your venue on our list or want some more options, Vicky at Event Accomplished compiled a similar list a couple weeks ago.  Some overlap but there are a bunch of different places.  Check it out for more ideas.

Let us know if you have questions about any of these venues!  Our goal is that you’re happy with the wedding decisions you make.  If we can assist you in any way, shoot us an email and let us know how we can help.