Lindsey Jones and John Gualdoni met as freshman-orientation guides at James Madison University in the beginning of their sophomore year. Lindsey was dating someone else at the time, but John was smitten immediately. “I know it’s cliché, but I always tell people that I knew the first time I met Lindsey that we were meant to be together,” says John, 26, an account representative for a medical-device company. “After I finally got the courage to talk to her, I had this sixth sense that we would someday end up together. It was like I had known her for years. We were at an ice-cream shop with a group of 20 other orientation guides, and we managed to talk for almost an hour.” But no sparks could fly because Lindsey had a boyfriend. The two kept in touch throughout the semester, John says, but as nothing more than friends.

“When I broke up with my boyfriend that winter, I happened to get an e-mail from John about a party he was having, so a couple of my friends and I went,” says Lindsey, 25, an account manager for a consulting firm. “As soon as I saw him again, I got butterflies in my stomach.” Ironically, John was in a relationship, but it was about to end. “Because of my feelings on the back burner for Lindsey, none of my relationships lasted,” John says. After Lindsey heard through a mutual friend that John had broken up with his girlfriend, she ran into him on campus, they had lunch, and he asked her out on a date.

Seventy-eight years of love.

Having a McDonald's-themed wedding? We've got the perfect cake for you. [via Bridalwave]

This former British Royal Navy baker crossed the pond and found an oven in Virginia. [via DC Nearlyweds]

Advice for the engagement party gift givers.

Have bridal news to share? E-mail lshallcross@washingtonian.com.

When we heard about the Wedding Lens, a new wedding photo-sharing site, we have to admit we didn’t even know what a wedding photo-sharing site was. But we knew that a service that allows friends and family to share wedding photos sounded like something right up our alley. So we caught up with Chuck Templeton, one of the three masterminds behind the service, to find out a little more about it.

If you’ve considered leaving disposable cameras on reception tables for guests to take pictures of your wedding, the Wedding Lens is something you might want to know more about. The idea was hatched when one of Templeton’s business partners was getting married. He and his bride wanted guests to be able to share photos, but they could find only photo-sharing sites that allowed each guest to upload pictures to a different account and then send the links to the albums back and forth. “It made for a disjointed experience,” Templeton says. It was also hard for the bride and groom to upload high-resolution copies of the photos that guests had taken.

In 2007, the Wedding Lens was born. On Theweddinglens.com, a bride and groom sign up for a free account, customize their album with their wedding details, and upload the e-mail addresses of their guests. A week before the wedding, the Wedding Lens e-mails the guests, encouraging them to bring a digital camera to the wedding. The day after the wedding, the company e-mails the guests again to remind them to upload all the photos they took at the wedding. Brides rave about being able to see photos of their celebration from the guests’ perspective. Another bonus? Not having to wait six weeks to see shots from the professional photographer.

Want to know more? Chuck gave us the details on why this new service is worth a second look.

Becoming a DJ was in the cards from the start for Mydeejay.com president Evan Reitmeyer. In elementary school, he was the narrator in a few school plays. In high school, he made morning announcements over the intercom and often emceed events like his school’s homecoming halftime show. “And yes, I was always the guy in charge of the music at any party,” he says.

Evan graduated from college and took an IT consulting job with a DJ company. When one of the DJs didn’t show up for a final meeting with a client, Evan agreed to DJ the wedding as a favor to his boss and he was hooked. “I fell in love with doing weddings because of the challenge they present,” he says. “No other event is more important than a wedding.”

Evan founded Mydeejay.com in 2003, and now he and his team work more than 250 weddings a year. They specialize in green weddings—in 2007 Mydeejay.com became the nation’s first 100-percent-carbon-neutral wedding entertainment company. Says Evan: “We run a practically paperless office, we purchase carbon credits to offset our electricity use and travel company-wide, we recycle anything and everything possible, and we always look for a green option whenever we have to buy something for the business, even if it costs a little more.”

To get him prepped for Thursday’s live chat and all of our readers’ questions, we asked Evan a few of our own: what song he and his wife would dance to if they got married all over again (“The Luckiest” by Ben Folds), what song is sure to get wedding guests onto the dance floor (“Low” by Flo Rida), and what song he would never play (any type of line dance, especially the chicken dance).

Got more questions for Evan? We know you do. Submit them now and Evan will answer them in the chat on Thursday from 11 AM to noon.

More>> Bridal Party Blog | Wedding Guide | Wedding Vendor Search  

Read up on all the ways to plan your big day without forking over too much dough. [via Bridalwave]

There's a dress for every size. [via DC Nearlyweds]

Get the flower 411 on peonies. [via The Wedding Chicks]

Do the rules of matching require pink ties?

Have bridal news to share? E-mail lshallcross@washingtonian.com.

So many great venues, so many great suggestions—but still no venue. I logged onto wedding message boards for one last futile attempt and saw a post for the Atrium at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. I opened its Web site, and I was in love after viewing only one picture at the bottom of the page.

This venue in Vienna was truly the best combination I could imagine: It has the beauty of an outdoor space with the temperature control and precipitation protection of an indoor room. I knew that this was the place. Then I looked at the rental rate, and my heart sank. The fee was three times what we wanted to spend for a room!

We continued to tour other venues and actually found one that we felt wouldn’t be all that bad. But, as the spoiled only child I’ve always been, I really wanted the best, and I felt that Meadowlark was the best option for our wedding. I spoke about it with my mother and Andrew, and I realized that compromise is a focal point of marriage. Maybe compromising on perfection was the right thing to do in this situation.

Who needs ABC's Bachelorette match-making magic? Jen Schefft is engaged.

In other ABC Bachelor/Bachelorette news: It's a baby on the way for Andrew Firestone.

A picture's worth a thousand thank you's. [via Weddingbee]

There's nothing more romantic than a groom offering to plan the wedding. [Always a Blogsmaid]

Have bridal news to share? E-mail lshallcross@washingtonian.com.