We’ve been planning weddings for five years and have helped over 250 couples tie the knot!  Luckily for you, that means we know the ‘ins and outs’ of nearly every wedding venue in Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland (beltway & eastern shore).

For an inside look at some weddings at our favorite venues, take a peek at the links below:

Historic/Garden:
The Carnegie Institute – and here – (Washington, DC)
The Atrium at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens (Vienna, 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)
Old Ebbitt Grill (Washington, DC)

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 Carnegie Institute (Washington, DC)
Newton White Mansion – and here – and here – and here – (Mitchellville, MD)
Mount Airy Mansion (Upper Marlboro, MD)
Oxon Hill Manor (Oxon Hill, 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 – and here – and here -  (Alexandria, VA)
River Farm (Alexandria, VA)
Hollin Hall (Alexandria, VA)
Old Town Hall (Fairfax, VA)
The Atrium at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens – and here – and here – and here – (Vienna, VA)
Oatlands Historic House & Gardens (Leesburg, VA)
The Thomas Birkby House – and here – (Leesburg, VA)
Raspberry Plain – and here – (Leesburg, VA)
Rose Hill Manor (Leesburg, VA)
Long Branch Historic House (Millwood, VA)
Whitehall Manor – and here – (Bluemont, VA)

Hotels/Clubs/Ballrooms:
The Fairmont Hotel – and the Colonnade here – (Washington, DC)
The Mandarin Oriental (Washington, DC)
The Omni Shoreham – and here – (Washington, DC)
The St. Regis Hotel (Washington, DC)
The Ronald Reagan Building – and here – (Washington, DC)
The Westin Grand – and here – (Washington, DC)
Hotel Monaco – and here – (Washington, DC)
The Washington Club (Washington, DC)
The National Press Club (Washington, DC)
Fort Myer Officer’s Club (Arlington, VA)
The Army Navy Country 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)
Fairfax Marriott (Fairfax, 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 – (Manassas, VA)

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

Non-traditional:
Glen Echo Park – (Glen Echo, MD)
The Barns at Wolf Trap (Vienna, VA)
The Torpedo Factory (Old Town Alexandria, VA)

Have you already picked your venue?  Where will you be tying the knot?  Which venues did we miss?

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!

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!

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.

Heard about Blog Action Day, yet?  We’ve been waiting for this day since August.  This amazing movement is comprised of bloggers all over the world who raise awareness of a problematic topic on the same day.  Last year’s theme was the environment and this year it’s poverty.  How do we connect weddings and poverty, you ask?

Many brides and grooms choose to donate to a charity or cause in lieu of wedding favors.  Sometimes this is an organization that’s meaningful to the couple, such as the ASPCA they adopted their dog from or their alma mater.  Sometimes this is an organization that the couple supports, like the Susan G. Komen Foundation or even Goodwill.

What organizations do they never contribute to?  Those they’ve never heard of.

I want to take this opportunity and raise awareness about three organizations that can use your help.  A wedding is the perfect time to think of those less fortunate.  Why not skip the jordan almonds and make a difference?

First we have ONE, perhaps the most popular of the three.  This is the organization that Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Susan Sarandon, Sean Combs, Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Bono, Tom Hanks, George Clooney, and many more support.  ONE is primarily a lobbying organization, dedicated to raising awareness and educating political officials about poverty in the US and other nations.  While they don’t yet have a gift registry set up, you could certainly make a donation in lieu of favors.  Here is one of their creative TV ads:

Next we have African Dowry.  This London-based organization is the wedding registry arm of Farm Africa, a charity that provides farming help to families in Africa.  As a bride, you can create a wedding registry, send your wedding guests to the website, and they make a donation on your behalf.  What a great idea!

Here is one story about the difference they’re making:

FARM-Africa is working with thirteen primary schools in Babati, Tanzania, through our Agricultural and Environmental Education Project. We help teachers to devise new lesson plans and deliver them in a way that inspires and motivates pupils.

Rebekah is sixteen years old and has attended her primary school since she was ten. Before then, her parents couldn’t afford to send her. Rebekah is enthusiastic about the new skills she’s learning:

“We’ve set up demonstration plots at school so we can learn how to plant maize. The maize has grown very well and we use it in the school, so we all get a meal to eat. The teachers also sell some to raise money for books and chairs. I want to be a farmer when I leave school, like my parents, but I also want to teach others how to farm well too.”

Rebekah has made a good start at teaching others. She’s taught her parents about the benefits of chicken and cattle manure and their maize is growing much better. FARM-Africa encourages children to share what they learn with their families and neighbours.

Farming in the future will still be challenging for these youngsters. But thanks to FARM-Africa’s work, children like Rebekah will leave school with the knowledge, skills and enthusiasm they need to help feed themselves and their families.

They also donate livestock, provide micro loans, and offer the use of farming equipment to prepare farmland and help with new crops.  Read more of their amazing stories here.

Finally we have my personal favorite.  Changing the Present is a similar organization built around helping people through gift registries.  Like African Dowry, you register on their website for certain items.  Instead of just focusing around Africa and farming, your guests can purchase things like fishing lessons for a woman, breakfast for a child for one year, or seeds for a village.  There are also categories other than hunger like human rights, peace, water, medical research, education, animal welfare, disaster relief, and many many more.  Just imagine the difference that money can make instead of buying you a new gravy boat or fondue pot.

I hope you’ve at least considered using one of these organizations as part of your wedding plans.  By taking a few minutes to learn about the options, you can make a big difference and play a role in ending the world’s poverty.