Pleased to meet you!

Hello Nearlyweds! I'm the newest addition and would like to introduce myself. Signor Keswick and I are planning an August 2009 wedding at the Keswick Hall Club and Estate just outside Charlottesville. By "planning," I mean we have had our final gallivant across northern VA and asked Keswick's coordinator to move forward on the contract. We found the venue this past spring courtesy of a Washington Post Travel article "Tuscanny in Virginia" or something to that effect. Because my now fiance and I love wine, the Mediterranean, and learning about wine, the title instantly piqued my interest. I read the article (it was a slow day at work), sent it to Sig. Kes, Googled said Tuscan escape, and voila! I had found a beautiful wedding venue. I only needed to become engaged. Sig. Keswick was also very impressed and imprinted on our memory did it remain. There had been discussions of a future life together, but I refused to be one of those "I'm just waiting for the ring" girls. He proposed to me on a summery Tueday evening in July at the Jefferson Memorial. This particular Tuesday and this particular memorial was exactly 1 day short of 8 years from when we'd first explored it during the high school leadership conference where we met - yes, we're kind of dorks - but in a good way! - flirting innocently among the marble columns.

The morning after our engagement we drove home to my small hometown in Southwest Virginia. On the way home from Sleepyton we stopped at Keswick Hall just because we loved it so much when we'd first read about it. We weren't able to schedule an official site visit, but that didn't stop us from exploring. Now, almost 1.5 months and several other NoVA B&Bs, museums, and countless hours of internet research later, we have officially named Keswick our reception site and reserved it for early August 2009. (We just had the site visit this past Saturday after braving the rains of Hanna.) I'll go into greater detail later about the many reasons I (already) love Keswick.

A few quick stats about me and my betrothed: We both live in Arlington, although not together. He's 25, a grad student, and currently studying for the LSAT's (good luck!!). I'm 24 and work on the events / fundraising side of a national healthcare nonprofit. He's Armenian /Scotch-German. I'm Filipino (born there, lived here since I was 4). The wedding will be around 100 people (at least we think so at this point). We'll probably go with a "romantic meets modern meets timeless" feel for the wedding.

Happy planning!