Original Wedding: Marissa & Victor at Glen Echo Park

After meeting through Marissa's blog and traveling to multiple countries together, Victor and Marissa were married on May 26th in a beautiful outdoor ceremony.

If you've never heard of Glen Echo Park, you should do yourself a favor and check it out! It's a hidden gem smack dab in the middle of Maryland, Virginia and D.C. What used to be a premier amusement park in the early 1900s is now home to numerous art studios, classes and dance programs. The best part-- The original, now-restored, carousel still remains!

The old bumper car pavilion also remains and served as the wedding venue that Marissa and Victor used for their reception! The entire park still has that old-time charm and it is such a unique venue for any event. With their paper lanterns, kazoo favors and balloon ceremony decorations, it was the perfect setting for Marissa and Victor to tie the knot! Guests had so much fun getting pictures taken at the photo booth and riding the carousel during cocktail hour. Everyone even picked up their kazoos to carry out a family tradition at the end of the night, playing along to songs with the Mother of the Bride and Best Man.

Marissa & Victor-- It was a pleasure to coordinate your wedding day. We wish you both the very best in your new life together!

Venue: Glen Echo Park

Coordinator: NoLo Weddings & Events

Caterer: Main Events

Photo Booth: Onomonomedia

An Amazing D.C. View - The Hay Adams

This post has one reason and one reason only-- To share with you the AMAZING view from the wedding venue at The Hay Adams in Washington, D.C. Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of coordinating a wedding at the Top of the Hay and let me tell you, this is one of the best views in D.C. If you are looking for a venue with panoramic views, you'll want to check them out!

Enjoy-- And please excuse the poor-quality iPhone photo. There will be plenty more photos when I post the wedding in the coming weeks, but this will do for now (I just couldn't wait!).

Happy Monday :)

Original Wedding: Stacey & Eric

One thing I absolutely love about weddings is detail. Whether the details be fun, creative, romantic, artsy, it doesn't matter. I love them all. In my opinion it's really the small things that pull together wedding decor and carry through a theme.

Stacey & Eric were one of those couples that did a wonderful job incorporating their theme into both the ceremony and reception. So, needless to say, I was SO excited when their wedding came on May 18th. They are such a fun couple and their "great catch" theme was perfect for them! The ceremony was absolutely stunning and the reception was both elegant and entertaining with a candy bar, dessert buffet, freshly baked cookies and a photo booth. The best part about the reception was that Eric had surprised Stacey with the photo booth and candy bar ice sculpture, when their budget allowed it at the last minute. The look on her face when she found out about the photo booth was priceless!

Stacey & Eric-- Thank you so much for allowing NoLo to be a part of your big day. We wish you nothing but the best in your new lives together!

Venue: Martin's Valley Mansion

Coordinator: NoLo Weddings & Events

Catering: Martin's Valley Mansion

Bug Spray Alternative

Raise your hand if you hate being covered in bug bites. Now raise your other hand if you hate the smell of traditional bug spray. Ditto!

Now that we are headed into warmer weather, couples and their guests are bound to be battling with bugs at outdoor weddings. That's the bad news. The good news is that Victoria's Secret's "Amber Romance" scent works as a bug repellent!

There seems to be mixed reviews (if you Google) on how well the scent really works but having just gotten married myself, I'm a fan! Josh and I had an outdoor ceremony, followed by a rustic, barn reception and I didn't have one bug bite when everything was said and done. I also included one of the body sprays in each of my bridesmaids' gift bags and not a single one of them complained of bugs either. So although I can't say it's 100% guaranteed to work for everyone, it definitely worked for us!

I know one thing is for sure, I was much happier to smell like "Amber Romance" on my wedding day than bug spray!

I also brought it along on our honeymoon, to the very humid Dominican Republic, and didn't have any problems with bugs!