Greetings from my grandma’s chair! I am currently working from home this morning as I wait for our shipment of reclaimed wood for our new downstairs floors. Very exciting! In the blogosphere though, we have a personalized Leesburg Virginia wedding at Lansdowne Resort courtesy of ZADesignz. Dan & Maria were smitten with each other from their very first date. As Maria tells it, their first date was a 3-hour dinner, that followed with a “had a great time” text and the rest, as they say, is history. They used their favorite colors (red and black) for their wedding colors and added some pops of purple and teal to brighten things up for their summer wedding. The result was a super fun wedding with lots of personalized details!
Dan & Maria’s Leesburg, Virginia at Lansdowne Resort
Vendors
Photographer: ZADesignz | Venue: Lansdowne Resort | Officiant: Diane Stanley | Day-of Coordinator: Steve Kisner (Lansdowne Director of Catering) | DJ: Dan with Premier DJ Services | Photobooth: Photo in a Box | Linens: A Grand Event | Cake: Lansdowne Resort Pastry Chef | Make-up Artist: Amanda with Tres Belle Beauty | Hair Stylist: Lauren with Tres Belle Beauty | Bouquets: Wegmans | Bride’s Dress: Alfred Angel | Submitted via Two Bright Lights
About the couple:
I’m a high school history teacher and Dan is a consultant for Accenture, an Army National Guardsman, and he founded and runs a fitness website (Fitiot.com).
The colors started with black and red because that has unintentionally become “our” colors. They were part of the colors of my own high school, college, and the school where I work, plus our kitchen appliances and bedroom had been (coincidentally) done in that color scheme.
Dan suggested we use it, and then we figured since it was summer and that would be a bit dark, we added the teal and purple to brighten it up, and we think it turned out amazing.
Maria decided to go a more nontraditional route with their flowers, relying on Home Goods, Wegmans, and a few other options to put together some DIY wedding flowers:
Flowers were not a top priority, so we didn’t use any except some inexpensive white tree-like flowers for the ceremony from Home Goods (which the venue staff then put by our “sweetheart” table, which we thought was a really good idea), the boutonnieres (silk roses from thebridesbouquet.com), and the bouquets, which my matrons of honor and I went out and bought at Wegman’s and put together the day of the wedding.
Click inside for the rest of Maria & Dan’s Lansdowne Resort, Leesburg Virginia wedding from ZADesignz.
Love the gerber daisey bouquet!
On their venue choice:
We chose Lansdowne for a few reasons. One, we had a lot of guests from out of town, so having a location with a hotel was really helpful. Two, the ceremony setting was incredible and the clubhouse ballroom was beautiful and not too “ballroom-y”, which we were trying to avoid. And finally, we were never interested in doing a ton of planning and organizing 50 different vendors, so the package at Lansdowne is perfect in that nearly everything, including our awesome coordinator, Steve Kisner, comes with it from the food to the drinks to our room that night!
^a really stunning outdoor Virginia ceremony site, don’t you think?
We ended up doing a lot more DIY projects than we had ever anticipated, but it was worth it in the end.
First, our invitations were inspired by one I saw on Vistaprint.com, but I ultimately made, print, and cut them all. We also made the ceremony programs, including cutting, folding, and gluing all of them into fans for the outdoor ceremony.
Groomsmen doing Charlie Angels poses? haha – yes!
We made a cute little table decoration with large stand-up letters spelling out “M&DF”, and on the M were pictures of me, on the D were pictures of Dan, on the F were pictures of us together, and on the “&” were pictures of our cat, Lulu!
^really love their whimsical programs!
The photo booth was a really fun addition to the reception. I think it was the most popular part for a lot of people! They had a lot of fun and we get not only digital copies of all the photos and videos but a copy of each physical strip went into a guestbook people got to sign. I highly recommend it and Photo in a Box, the company we used.
We also made the centerpieces by “hinging” 3 square picture frames together and painting them black so people could write their favorite advice about love and marriage on them with metallic markers. The frames also included pictures of us with as many people sitting at that particular table as possible, so that was a lot of work to organize but definitely worthwhile!
Congratulations Maria & Dan! Thank you for sharing your Virginia wedding with us. A special thanks again to ZADesignz for submitting the images via Two Bright Lights.
