For those looking for classic wedding style ideas, this Cosmos Club celebration has you covered. Taylor and Josh, who met through their church, Passion City Church DC, tied the knot this past September at the private social club on Massachusetts avenue. Though the guest list was scaled back in keeping with Covid-19 restrictions, and additional safety practices were put into place, their special day was filled with classic-inspired wedding details, from the bride’s custom ballgown to their French blue, cream, and green color palette, to the ballroom venue. The couple says that they pulled a lot of their ideas from their venue. “The [Cosmos] Club has beautiful French architecture, so we didn’t try to introduce anything that would compete with the style,” they say. “The words we kept coming back to were elegant and intimate.” And, trust us, this real wedding is the exactly those things. See for yourself below!
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The Classic Invitation Suite
Taylor opted to design her own invitations. “I am a novice calligrapher and designed the invitations, addressed the envelopes and wrote the place cards for the day. It was sweet and special to be able to write out all the names of beloved family and friends in the time leading up to the wedding.” Taylor says her decision to design her own invitations also allowed for more flexibility when it came to planning a wedding in the middle of a pandemic. “I knew exactly what I wanted them to look like, and with COVID we didn’t know how many invitations we were going to need, so I needed the flexibility to decide when to print and what to put on the invitation,” she explains.
Their Personalized Ceremony
“Taylor and I decided to engrave each other’s wedding bands and keep what we had engraved secret until our ceremony,” says Josh, adding that they planned to exchange traditional vows, but wanted a way to personalize their ceremony. “As part of the exchanging of rings, we shared with the other one what we had inscribed on our wedding band and why,” he says. “No one, except the engraver, knew what the other had chosen, neither did we talk about what the other was thinking beforehand, so it was really special that we both ended up choosing three separate words that are very similar to one another.”
The Classic (and French!) Inspired Wedding Reception
Taylor has an affinity for France, since she studied abroad there for graduate school. So, she and Josh chose the Cosmos Club for their venue because the interior reminded her of French architecture. The couple also shared their first date at DC’s iconic French restaurant Le Diplomate and therefore the European details of their venue also played into their love story. The couple worked with Cosmos Club’s chef to create a personalized menu for their reception, too. “The chef at the Cosmos Club really allowed us to customize our dishes and we tried to bring in as much personal elements as possible,” says Taylor. The couple spends a lot of time in Maine so they served an avocado and cucumber soup with fresh lobster as a starter. They then included peaches in their second course as a nod to Taylor’s family who are from Atlanta. To add a bit of the DMV to their menu, a true Maryland style crab cake was also served. To promote social distancing, planner Tabitha Roberts says round tables were spaced out and seated with six guests or less, and the kings table featured unique six-foot gaps that were filled with florals so they didn’t feel empty. “The couple had custom masks for guests and we had an abundance of hand sanitizer stations,” says Roberts. Finally, the Cosmos Club provided small plates of hors d’oeuvres instead of passed.
The Details:
Photographer: Birds of a Feather Photography | Venue & Catering: Cosmos Club | Planning & Design: Roberts & Co Events | Florist: Britt Woods Design | Invitations: Taylor Ayres | Cake: Fluffy Thoughts | Hair Stylist & Makeup Artist: Kiev Osborne | Bride’s Attire: Britt Wood Design | Groom’s Attire: Suitsupply | DJ, Lighting, and Stage: Dan Goldman Events
Jacqueline comes to Washingtonian with close to five years of digital content experience and SEO best practices. She previously was a senior editorial associate at WeddingWire, specializing in wedding fashion, and before that, an assistant at Vow Bride. Originally from Norfolk, Virginia, she now lives in Columbia Heights.
