WEDDINGS

WEDDINGS

Walk in the Park

A Silver Spring couple’s Glen Echo wedding featured a six-piece band playing oldies, bags of Fisher’s Popcorn and a late-night stop at the Irish Inn

BY DANA GERBER

THE COUPLE: Kasey Ott (maiden name O’Boyle), 30, grew up in Kensington and graduated from Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington, D.C. She’s an art teacher at Connelly School of the Holy Child in Potomac. Tim Ott, 34, grew up in the Barnaby Woods neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and graduated from Landon School in Bethesda. He works in government contracting. They live in the Indian Spring

Hills neighborhood of Silver Spring.

HOW THEY MET: The night before Thanksgiving in 2015, Kasey and Tim struck up a conversation at Town Hall, a now-closed bar in D.C.’s Glover Park neighborhood, while they were there for high school reunions. They had met months before, at the Lighthouse Restaurant in Dewey Beach—Kasey remembered this, but Tim didn’t, until he realized upon asking for her number that it was already in his phone. “I figured that was a sign that I should follow up,” Tim says. “The second time, I wasn’t going to let that go by without a call.” About a week later, for their first date, they chowed down on Mexican fare at the (now-closed) El Centro location on 14th Street.

THE PROPOSAL: On Dec. 31, 2020, Kasey and Tim were on vacation in Folly Beach, South Carolina. The two had already picked out a rose-cut diamond ring at I. Gorman Jewelers in D.C., but Kasey was under the impression it wasn’t ready yet. During a break in the all-day rain, Tim asked Kasey to go for a walk. Under a misty streetlight by a beach entrance, Tim got down on one knee. “Luckily, the answer was yes,” he says.

THE CEREMONY: The couple wed in a Catholic Mass ceremony on Oct. 2, 2021, at Annunciation Catholic Church in D.C. with about 175 guests present. Planning a wedding in 10 months proved tight, Kasey says, but the uncertainty of the pandemic worked in their favor. “Stuff in the fall was still available, because it was just a large question mark,” she says. The groom’s most

WEDDINGS

treasured memory from the day was seeing Kasey walk down the aisle in her white column gown under the church’s stained-glass windows. “She looks beautiful every day, but she looked absolutely stunning,” he says.

THE RECEPTION: After the ceremony, the newlyweds and their guests took buses to the reception venue, the Bumper Car Pavilion at Glen Echo Park. With the pandemic still posing a threat, the pair wanted something outdoors, and Kasey had taken art classes at Glen Echo’s Yellow Barn Studio in high school. “The days of when it was a little amusement park predated us, but a lot of the older guests, our parents’ age and their friends … had experiences of going to that park when they were kids,” Tim says. “Not only was it a nice venue in general to have a wedding, but it was fun hearing stories from some of the folks who remembered going there.” After the reception, the newlyweds and some guests hoofed it to the nearby Irish Inn at Glen Echo to keep the night going. “I always rolled my eyes when people would be like, ‘It’s the best day of my life,’ ” Kasey says, “but it really was the best day of my life.”

THE FLOWERS: The bride called on friend Michelle Samson of Misa Floral to do the bouquets, asking her to “use what’s in season, and that tended to be the rustier or burgundy palette.” The centerpieces were a mix of traditional flowers, like roses and dahlias, and more distinctive blooms, like scabiosa

and ninebark. “She treats the flowers like they’re sculptures,” Kasey says.

THE FOOD AND DRINK: During cocktail hour, appetizers included chicken and waffles, beef sirloin crostini and vegetable and goat cheese tarts. For the plated feast, guests had a choice of apple cider chicken breast, chickpea-crusted salmon or wild mushroom ravioli. The wedding cake was a two-tier, almond-flavored confection, and the groom’s cake, shaped like a hockey rink, was funfetti with strawberry icing. Tim played hockey in high school, and his mom put hockey player figurines on his birthday cakes as a kid. “Kasey found some of these guys online, the same hockey guys that my mom had used 20 years ago, and put those on the groom’s cake, so that was a nice touch,” Tim says. Beer koozies, funfetti cookies and bags of Fisher’s Popcorn, a mid-Atlantic beach staple, served as party favors.

THE MUSIC: The Groove Motive, the sixpiece band that played oldies and Motown hits at the reception, turned out to be a worthwhile splurge. Kasey’s favorite moment from the big day was the first dance to Aretha Franklin’s version of “You Send Me,” underneath twinkling string lights. “Of course everybody’s watching,” she says, “but I felt really connected to him in that moment.” As the night went on, tunes like “Shout” by the Isley Brothers got everybody grooving. “At one point, somebody’s tie became a limbo stick,” Kasey says. THE HONEYMOON: The day after the wedding, the newlyweds headed to The Omni Homestead Resort in Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains, spending about five days fly fishing, horseback riding and enjoying the spa.

VENDORS: Band, The Groove Motive; bartenders, Please Bring Chips; buses, RMA Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation; cake, Sweets by Sara Ann; catering, Ridgewells Catering; dress, Safiyaa; florals, Misa Floral; hair, Styled by Anna Fazio; hotel, Glover Park Hotel; makeup, Makeup by Mimi Tran; paper goods, Calligraphette & Co.; photography, Kimberly F. Denn Photography; planning, Kristen Dawson of Elizabeth Carberry Creative; rentals, Perfect Settings; string lights, Atmosphere Inc. n