One Perfect Day

A Chevy Chase couple's nearly year-long odyssey in search of a wedding that says 'wow.'

December 29, 2010 8:06 a.m.

As soon as the Chevy Chase couple returned, the planning started. Jackie’s 58-year-old mother, Dale, took the lead—and Jackie and Dan were happy to defer to her. Dale and Gary Abrahams live half the year in Bethesda and the other half in Jupiter, Fla., where Dale helps organize charity events. Before retiring, Gary, 57, was co-founder and chairman of a company that provides short-term corporate housing. It was purchased by Marriott in 1999.

Gary and Dale met at summer camp during the ninth grade and were married at Indian Spring Country Club in Silver Spring in 1974. “It was so much simpler then,” Gary says. “Weddings are different today—they’re a lot more lavish and involved. There are experts to plan events and specialists to do everything.”

With the dramatically lit tree in the background, a reception table seems to glow. Photo courtesy: Freed PhotographyJackie and Dan just wanted a big party with friends, family and dancing. But as the guest list began to grow, topping out at about 260, it became clear they needed an expert. “We really didn’t know how to do it,” Jackie says.

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On a friend’s recommendation, Dale hired Rita Bloom, founder of Creative Parties in Bethesda. Bloom, a D.C. resident, is a remarkably youthful, energetic 80. She likens being an event planner to being a psychologist, a field she once studied. “I listen, then feed it back to the client,” she says.

Bloom got her start helping friends throw Sweet 16 parties for their daughters. “It was an intuitive kind of thing for me—the ability to visualize events,” she says. By 1968, her event-planning business expanded enough for her to open Creative Parties, which she now runs with her daughter, Tracy Bloom Schwartz of Potomac.

Bloom charges $7,500 to $15,000, depending on the scope of the event. The cost of a high-end wedding in the D.C. area with 150 to 175 guests, she says, averages $75,000 to $150,000. It’s a lot of money. But “the culture we live in is so filled with uncertainty, with so many things we can’t control,” Bloom says. “Here we can make One Perfect Day.”

The making of Jackie and Dan’s Perfect Day would begin with the search for a nondenominational site for both the ceremony and the reception. After scouting practically every hotel in the area, Jackie and Dan decided on The Fairmont in D.C. The Abrahams family and Dan are major foodies, and the hotel promised a creative menu.

Then they set the date—Aug. 21, 2010—and the clock started ticking.

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Before Dale and Gary returned to Florida at the end of November, Jackie shopped for a gown. After visiting two local salons, she, her mother and sister went to a one-day trunk show by New York designer Judd Waddell, whose dresses range from $3,000 to $5,000. Jackie tried on 20 at Hitched Bridal Couture + Creative Planning Salon in Georgetown before deciding she was overwhelmed and needed time to think. She left, but returned later that afternoon as the staff was packing up the dresses to return to New York. After a second look at one she especially liked—it had “a fresh look to it”—Jackie took the plunge and ordered it in a size 2, which would be custom-fit later on. “I thought I would want a fitted mermaid-style dress,” Jackie says. “It was nothing like I thought.”

They chose bridesmaids’ dresses, too: strapless, cobalt-blue satin minis for the eight young women who would precede Jackie down the aisle.

By now, Dale and Gary had heard a Baltimore-based band, The Source, at another wedding, and they suggested it for the reception. “My dad is very levelheaded, and he said it was the best band he ever heard,” Jackie says. She and Dan checked out The Source online and were impressed.

The key to a great wedding band? Its ability to read the crowd, Bloom says. The price: $5,000 and up.

With all the major elements in place, Jackie’s parents headed to Florida, and planning was suspended.

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The fact that Jackie and Dan came from different religious traditions necessitated some fundamental decisions. Though choosing not to convert, “Dan was very open to Judaism, keeping a Jewish home and raising our kids Jewish,” Jackie says. Dan had a long conversation with his maternal grandmother, a practicing Catholic in New Orleans. She told him to do what would make him—and Jackie—happy.

What made Jackie and her family happy was to have a rabbi officiate. Assistant Rabbi Noah Fabricant, 28, of Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C., was assigned the task of performing their marriage. He also would conduct six sessions of pre-marital counseling.

At Jackie and Dan’s first session, Fabricant asked them to write down three things they would change about the other. After 30 minutes, they hadn’t come up with one.

Early in the spring of 2010, Dale returned from Florida and planning resumed. After hours of detailed discussions with area florists, she and Jackie selected Rick Davis of Amaryllis in D.C. Jackie and Dale wanted florals that were tall and striking, much like the couple. Florals and décor for a wedding of this size and scope can range from $10,000 to $50,000, Bloom says.

In mid-May, Jackie and Dan raced from their respective offices one afternoon to meet with The Fairmont’s director of catering, Robert Mikolitch. They sat with Dale, Gary (now back from Florida, too) and Bloom in the hotel’s atrium lobby, overlooking the courtyard garden. An amateur chef, Gary was especially interested in the food selection; the rest of the details he’d leave to everyone else.

Gary tossed out ideas as Executive Chef Jason Dalling and Executive Pastry Chef Aron Weber listened. He suggested a first course served at the table, with themed food stations offering “tapas-style” dishes. That would allow guests to mingle, rather than having to sit through the usual three-course meal. As Dale and Gary took turns throwing out rapid-fire ideas, Jackie and Dan sat quietly, looking from one to the other as if following a tennis match.

“We’re looking for unusual, little fun things to serve,” Dale told the chefs.

“Try to make it interesting and different,” Gary said. “Think outside the box.”

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