Jillian and Chris’s wedding is this Saturday and, well, I could help but tempt you with one of their engagement photos. Old Town Alexandria is such a beautiful place and it truly shows in this great photo from Brian Tropiano.

Keep an eye out early next week for photos from the wedding!

Cheers,

Laura is not only a wonderful wedding planner, but she is also the fabulous wife/mother to three boys (two of them are wonderful, the third one has issues saying he is wonderful because he was elected to type this blog post.  The other boys lack fingers for typing).  While Laura is working at a wedding tonight, all three of us boys spent this valentines day having a family meeting to come up with all the reasons why Laura is the most important thing in our life.  The meeting really didn’t have to take long because it was a simple task.  We decided to share the minutes from our meeting to Laura’s community through her blog (the nice thing about owning the server that her site is on is that I can login and do this without her knowing!)
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Auer Family Meeting
February 14th, 2009

FAMILY MEMBERS PRESENT
Chris the husband
Schooner the dog
Mico the bird

FAMILY MEMBERS ABSENT
Laura the wife/mom

CALL TO ORDER
This meeting was called to order by Chris the husband at 8:59pm after her rounded up Schooner the dog from the kitchen sink he was standing in again and Mico the bird from the cage which he was standing in.

NOTES FROM MICO ABOUT MOM

- Love the fact that mommy chases me around when I need to get exercise by flying.  Lord only knows how out of shape I would be if she didn’t make me fly (boy I know its a gift but I hate to use it)

- She makes the best corn/pellets/banana meal I have ever known

- She is always so willing to share her cereal and her ice cream with me, I love her for that

NOTES FROM SCHOONER ABOUT MOM

- Mommy is so soothing.  There can be scary things like the leaf blowers out side or people walking outside our door, but when she starts calming me down… nothing else matters

- She is really fun to play with. Not very good at throwing the ball, but no human is perfect.  I think I almost have her trained to throw the ball properly

- SPECIAL NOTE: Schooner has a longer list, but he has left the meeting temporarily to attend his 9:05pm appointment to try to hide his bone in the perfect spot.

NOTES FROM CHRIS THE HUSBAND

- Laura is one of the most caring persons that I have ever known in my life.  Whether its her family or her business, she always puts in 150%

- Even though she is the most detail oriented individual I have ever known, she still is capable of being completely spontaneous

- The way I look at it, there are 6.80 billion people in the world.  Half of the population doesn’t necessarily fit my criteria for marriage for one reason or another.  My odds for finding the perfect wife were 3.40 billion to 1.  I think this makes me ONE LUCKY DUDE for getting it right the first time!

ADJOURNMENT
This meeting was adjourned at 9:22pm on February 14th, 2009 after Schooner returned from finding the perfect hiding spot (yeap, under the curtains again).

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Happy Valentines sweets!

Love

Chris the husband

Way back in March I posted about some non-traditional first dance songs.  Well, I’ve been updating my iTunes and fell back in love with Queen.  Somebody MUST pick this song for their first dance:

OK, the video’s a little odd and we all know Freddy made some interesting wardrobe choices.  But who doesn’t love this song?  Shout out to Erin for Queen first dances!

Armin DeFiesta’s website & blog

:::please ignore the constant parrot screams in the background.  someday I’ll introduce my parrot to you via video blog and you’ll be amazed at how loud a little bird can really be:::

Transcript for those of you at work without sound:
“Hi everybody, thanks for checking out our blog today.  My name is Laura – I’m the one who writes most of the posts here on the Wish Blog.  I figured today I would switch it up a little bit and do a video blog!  I’ve never done one of these before (sorry if it’s awful).  I wanted to thank my friend Armin DeFiesta.  First, for having lunch with me today and second for inspiring me to do one of these video blog posts.  I hope you like it!  I wanted to take a quick second and show you around my office.  It’s a little bit messy, like always, but I figured I’d show you where I work everday when I’m not at Starbucks meeting with a client or at a wedding venue doing weddings.  So behind me I have my husband’s bike gear.  He’s big into biking and is doing a 210-mile charity ride in August this year on the other side of the country in Seattle.  I’m very excited for him.  On the other side…this is my desk with my laptop, my printer, my scanner, and all the bride files and all the kind of good stuff that goes along with wedding planning.  So anyway, I figured this would be a little bit different and hopefully in 2009 we’ll do these a little bit more often.  Definitely check back on the blog later this week.  We have a BIG giveaway to announce.  It will be running through the first couple months of the year which will be a day-of coordination giveaway.  Stay tuned for details on that.  Have a great afternoon otherwise!  Hopefully we’ll see you soon.  Thanks!”

Remember the 2007 DC ISES expo?  Check out part one, part two, and part three if you want to see what you missed last year.

Last week, Ryan and I ventured to the Bethesda North Marriott where the DC chapter of the International Special Events Society was hosting it’s 2008 expo.  This is a spectacular trade show for event professionals that shows us what’s new in the industry and what the latest trends are.

What a beautiful hotel!  If you’re planning a larger wedding (400+ guests), this is a really nice new venue that would be ideal for a lot of people.  There are plenty of hotel rooms on-site, the ballroom is nearly new and is appointed tastefully, and the staff is used to acommodating a lot of people at once.  Here’s what we saw when we entered:

The ISES committee that put together the expo decided to go all out with a theme.  Last year’s James Bond theme was only tied into the event a little bit.  This year it was Cirque du Soleil!  You can really tell by all the beautiful lighting, swagged fabric on the ceiling, and crazy bright colors.  I liked this iridescent dance floor although it would hardly be appropriate for a wedding:

The center of the room held a huge circle of lounge furniture from Cort Event Furnishings.  Standing on the tables were Cirque-inspired performers who juggled, danced, and generally provided eye candy.  Cast of Thousands provided these characters.  There’s one in the center there wearing all black and another one off to the right with blue skin:

On the opposite side of the room, Arachne Aerial Arts did a fantastic Cirque-style performance:

One of the booths I was intriqued by was set up by Capitol Decor.  Remember when we visited their warehouse in January?  Apparently black and white damask is the hot new trend!  If you haven’t seen enough of this scheme on Weddingbee (here and here) or Junebug, you certainly will at weddings across the DC metro area over the next two years:

I liked the whole thing, really, but what really got me was the table.  Do you see how it’s a clear acrylic or lucite material?  There’s space to put stuff in between.  They used yellow roses and a layer of water:

Another little detail that struck my fancy was the damask votive holders.  Look how cute:

Another furniture rental company, Room Service, caught on to the damask trend too.  This company is new to the DC area and we’re glad to have another lounge furniture option:

Sadly I don’t remember whose booth this was and I already tossed the program (eek!).  Does anyone remember who had this cool display?  Again with the damask…those are actually removable vinyl stickers that can be applied to any surface:

The lights behind the panels subtlety changed colors!  Here it is in pink and purple:

Select Event Rentals had this beautiful mini tent set up with a tabletop display inside.  I love the ribbon inside the centerpiece vase instead of traditional clear water.  I also like the aqua-colored plates on top of the white square chargers:

American Furniture Rental set up this arrangement with funky blue suede furniture pieces:

As always, we saw a few of our vendor friends out and about at the expo.  Here’s Tonya from Blue Sky Films:

We also ran into the DaVinci’s Florist crew!  The owner Sharone is there on the left, his sister Sivan in the white coat, and Diana on the far right.  Jennifer from Syzygy Events is there in the middle.  Even when blurry they make a handsome group, don’t you think?

This proper lady was walking around, displaying brochures and candy on her tabletop skirt:

Party Rental had a beautiful table set up with all different combinations of place setting pieces:

Here are a few of my favorites:

If that weren’t enough sensory overload for you, they even had an Obama impersonator complete with a secret service agent (see his earpiece on the right?).  Obama got it right down to the American flag lapel pin.  Here he is posing with Ryan:

I know you’ve seen it a million places.  Just don’t forget!  There should be nothing that stands in your way of going to the polls.  These stickers are the hottest fashion trend today:

Remember that Virginia is open until 7pm, The District until 8pm and Maryland until 8pm.  Click here to find your polling place if you’ve moved or forgotten where to go.  Plus did you know you can get a free tall cup of brewed coffee at Starbucks if you tell them you voted?  California Tortilla’s also giving away coupons for free tacos when you show them your sticker.

Thanks Ryan, for sending me this awesome video!  Instead of sending it to five of my friends I thought I’d post it here.  Check it out:

maps.google.com/vote

Eight years since we met. It’s hard to believe how quickly time has flown! We’re actually high school sweethearts and I can vividly remember our first date playing laser tag. Lame, yes.

We had many “pick up Papa Johns, take it to the park, and just sit together for hours” dates and continue them in the form of “pick up California Tortilla, take it to the dog park, and watch our Schooner-dog run around for hours” dates. We’ve grown and changed but somehow stay the same.Here’s one of my favorite photos of us from our wedding day in 2006. I have no idea what he told me but most of his silly comments make me laugh like that. I’m so lucky to have an incredibly supportive, loving, energetic, goofy, smart, and wonderful husband. Happy anniversary, Sweets!