Whether you’re planning a laid-back outdoor wedding for 50 or a lavish affair for 200, the food at a wedding reception should be one of the highlights of the evening. For more than 20 years, Windows Catering Company has been providing innovative menus for events all over the Washington area. Last year, the company decided to create a division focusing solely on one of its most important groups: brides and grooms.

From cakes infused with the tropical flavors of a honeymoon destination to a remake of a favorite family recipe to a main dish reminiscent of your first date, Windows aims to make each event exactly what the couple had always imagined. Just this year, it catered 150 weddings, including one for 600 guests at the National Building Museum. And Windows wedding planners don’t stop at the food—they also assist couples in lining up everything from venues to entertainment.

On Thursday, Danielle Couick, senior wedding planner at Windows, is swinging by The Washingtonian to answer all your questions, from food to every other element in planning your happy day. What would be on Danielle’s wedding menu? Because she’s originally from North Carolina, she says fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits would most definitely be served. What are her recommendations for you? Submit your questions now, and Danielle will answer them from 11 AM to noon on Thursday. 

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Because she grew up with a mom who was a minister, weddings were all around Sara Bauleke. But she didn’t realize they were her calling until she was finishing her master’s degree in public policy at Georgetown University. With her new degree, she decided she didn’t really want to head down that career path anymore.

To fill the time before settling on something new, Sara helped a few friends plan their weddings. And just like that, she was hooked. Sara formed Bella Notte Wedding Consulting in 2004 and has planned almost 100 weddings, with guests including secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, FBI director Robert Mueller, and former senator Bob Dole. Her work has been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings.

On Thursday, Sara stopped by The Washingtonian’s office to answer our readers’ questions in a live chat. Is it a no-no to buy off the registry? What to do with a meddling mother? Kids or no kids at the wedding? Sara answered all these questions and more. If you missed the chat, catch up here.

For Sara Bauleke, owner of event-planning firm Bella Notte, the training for becoming a wedding planner started early. Her mother is a minister, so she grew up with weddings all around her. “My mom would always come home and give me a rundown on how the wedding went,” Sara says. “It’s great now because some of my cautionary tales are from her—like the time the groomsmen drank a little too much before an outdoor ceremony and ended up fainting from the combination of alcohol and heat.”

Twenty years later, while Sara was finishing up her master’s degree in public policy at Georgetown University, she decided she didn’t really want to head down that career path anymore. To fill the time before settling on something new, she helped a few friends plan their weddings. She was immediately hooked. Sara formed Bella Notte in 2004 and has planned almost 100 weddings, with guests including secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, FBI director Robert Mueller, and former senator Bob Dole. Her work has been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings.

Sara is coming in to answer your wedding questions in a live chat on Thursday. Submit questions now, and Sara will answer them on Thursday from 11 AM to noon.

When it comes to weddings—whether you’re planning your own big day or you’re simply a guest—the unwritten etiquette rules seem to be everywhere. But which ones can you toss to the side and which ones should you follow? It can feel like a maze sometimes, so we called in some help. Nancy Mitchell, founder of the Etiquette Advocate, came in for a live chat on Thursday to help us navigate the tricky dos and don’ts of everything wedding.

If the devil is in the details, then you might call Nancy Mitchell the angel of weddings. As founder of the Etiquette Advocate, Nancy advises and trains everyone from brides to corporations and government agencies on the rules of protocol and etiquette. After spending 23 years as the Library of Congress’s chief protocol adviser and director of special events and public programs, Nancy headed off to use that experience in her own etiquette consulting business. She brings her lessons in protocol to George Washington University and Stratford University as an adjunct professor, and she’s been featured on ABC’s Good Morning America, NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

What’s the most important thing for brides to know when it comes to etiquette? “Use it as a helpful tool in wedding planning, not as an enemy of creativity,” she says. Etiquette rules serve as a foundation for wedding planning, but they don’t need to hinder a unique and truly personal celebration. “Instead of being rigid or inhibiting, etiquette rules and traditions help to ensure that everyone is speaking the same language, misunderstandings are avoided, and difficult situations are handled diplomatically.”

Throughout the next year, Nancy will be putting her own advice to work at home. Her daughter, Sallie, got engaged in September. “Because I am an event planner and an etiquette adviser, she’s including me in the planning, which is delightful,” Nancy says. “I have a challenging role of advising her as a daughter and a client. Maybe my dual role will prevent me from turning into a momzilla.”

Nancy has a wealth of advice, and she’s coming to The Washingtonian to share her knowledge of all the weddings dos and don’ts. Every Washington bride knows there are rules—but which ones have to be followed and which ones can be bent? Write personal thank-you notes in a timely fashion? Yes, please. Ask for money in lieu of gifts? Um, no. Submit all your etiquette questions now, and Nancy will answer them from 11 AM to noon in Thursday’s live chat.

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Everyone knows music can make or break a party, and what’s a wedding if not one big party? So when it comes to picking the tunes for your big day, there’s a lot of pressure to make a good choice. Do you need a DJ and a band? What songs are better left off the playlist? How can you make sure the music is fit for the younger guests as well as the older ones?

Yesterday, Mydeejay.com president Evan Reitmeyer came in for a live chat to answer all those questions and more. 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.

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.

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