By: A hockey-themed wedding before the hockey season starts? Yes, that’s exactly what Tim & Marisa, both ardent hockey fans, decided to do for not just their reception, but their entire wedding theme. Though the venue for the wedding wasn’t Verizon Center in nearby Washington, DC, or Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA, the 5-Star Ballroom at Army Navy Country Club (ANCC) in Arlington was the site of the marital faceoff celebration.
It’s definitely a hockey wedding when this is your logo.
We first met Marisa (a Washington Capitals fan) about 10 years ago, long before she met Tim (a rival Philadelphia Flyers fan), or was even in high school, as her brother Sammy and father Sam were important pieces to the Gonzaga College High School ice hockey program. Sammy was a player while Sam would become the tournament director for the team’s annual Purple Puck hockey tournament for which we provide announcing, music, statistical and other services each year.
Marisa and her sister, Natalie, would often be found at the rink with the matriarch of the family Michelle supporting Sammy or the program in general. Even after Sammy went on to college, they continue to be part of the program and part of the tournament year-after-year.
In fact, it was the most recent Purple Puck tournament at Ft. Dupont Ice Arena, in which the future Mr. and Mrs. Strickler started working with our owner and DJ Jarrod Wronski on the details of the wedding, though all of the process really began about a year ago.
As the planning process continued, a lot of details were talked about. During a very chilly January meeting at ANCC, we had the chance to see the room for the first time to get an idea of the layout and all the policies of the facility. The fine people of ANCC were first-class right from the start and it was a pleasure to work with them.
More and more details were worked on through the spring and into the summer when Tim, Marisa and Jarrod were talking about different ideas. One idea, which came to define a lot of the design of the wedding was the place card holders. We knew where to get hockey pucks that also serve as business card holders and assisted the couple for place card holders. Sam then set to work and had one of his graphic designers put together the graphic on the puck, along with the wedding’s logo.
Marisa’s sister Natalie designed “ticket poster” which was also used for Save The Dates.
Natalie, who was to be Marisa’s Maid of Honor, used her amazing creative talent to put together the Save the Date “tickets” which was also blown up into a poster and used at the wedding reception. She also designed a special slide show that was shown during lunch and would be shown throughout the remainder of the reception.
The 5-Star Ballroom was the setting for most of the reception and was decked out in beautiful linens from ANCC and flowers from Twinbrook Floral Design. A custom gobo with the wedding’s logo was projected onto the dance floor as guests entered from the terraces that were the site of cocktail hour. Instead of table numbers, each table had a Capitals or Flyers player’s (or in one case a player who played for BOTH the Caps and Flyers, Mike Knuble) picture.
The wonderful photographer, Lindsay Docherty also set up a photo booth for the guests in the lobby. While the guests began to enter, Jack O’Laughlin of Video Vignette went to work grabbing the moving images while Lindsay captured the frozen moments that will be remembered for years to come.
Both Lindsay and Jack were excellent in getting the important videos and pictures without blocking the view of the guests and are amazing wedding professionals.
The hockey puck place card holders were a hit and were also the wedding favors that the guests kept.
Pulling together all of the details was Lacoya Heggie from Hello Love Events. Lacoya was a pleasure to work with as she coordinated all the schedules and itineraries, facilitated communication between the vendors so it felt like we were working with people we’ve been working with for a long time, and was cool in the face of a couple of minor technological hiccups during the reception.
The grand exit of the reception before the happy couple disembarked on their honeymoon to Europe was true to their vision, a hockey stick arch over the happy couple as they exited ANCC.
Marisa & Tim sent this message on the Caps video board for Jarrod’s first NHL game as a DJ.
Wedding Notes: Marisa & Tim were at DJ Jarrod’s first NHL game as the DJ for the Washington Capitals back in October. Before each game, the Capitals run what is called the “Text Message Ticker” in which fans send and post messages on the video board. You can see their message to the right. The funny thing, it took Jarrod about a week to figure out who M & T were that sent the message!
Some additional highlights of the reception were the guests that were in attendance that included some high profile doctors, a former ambassador to Ireland and U. S. Military personnel.
DJ Jarrod with DJ Sammy G!
Though we typically don’t allow just anyone on our equipment, we were very happy to assist Sam with his dream in spinning at his daughter’s wedding. Sam, on the surfaces, looks like a classical music, classic rock type of guy. Well, looks are deceiving as Sam is very big into EDM music and wanted to drop some sick beats during the reception.
We made sure that we had plenty of time for Sam to get behind the 1’s and 2’s, he provided a list of songs that he wanted to perform and we assisted him with creating a custom track just for the wedding. When it was his time to step up, boy did he. Bringing the house down and filling the dance floor, when Sam retires from his current work he might just come to Metro DC DJs & Entertainment as DJ Sammy G!
This story has gone viral and we are excited to see that. You can’t believe how excited we are that Tim & Marisa’s wedding day has become a source of interest for many, not just in the DC area, but all over the world. We’ve posted several links to stories in our “In the News” section underneath About Us.
We also found this on reddit. And figured since there were many comments, we’d put that link here!
http://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/2h8473/hockey_couple_goes_all_out_for_a_capitals_and/