VA Library Celebrating Romance With Free Wedding Ceremony

ARLINGTON, VA — Anyone planning to drop off some books at Arlington’s Central Library on Saturday may encounter something unexpected — a wedding officiated by Library Director Diane Kresh.

The ceremony is the culmination of months of work by library staff so that the Arlington community can “share the love” and “bear the witness” to the very public wedding of Katie Lettie and Vincent Bauer.

“The library is really this place in the community that all of these people come together, and so one of the most fun part for us has been being able to collaborate with the library staff to figure out how we can make this feel like as much of an open and inclusive wedding for anybody who happens to be at the library as possible,” Lettie said.

Julia Berg, the library’s manager of programs, outreach, partnership and The Shop, had been wanting to do a library wedding for a long time.

“It's a great community builder,” she said. “I really wanted to be able to bring the communities together in this fun way, and our theme for our year-long Arlington Reads series was ‘Share the Love.’ We had romance authors, and we've been doing all sorts of programming around that theme. So, this just fits in really nicely.”

Lettie and Bauer were among the 54 couples who submitted entries to win the free wedding hosted by APS and sponsored by the Friends of the Arlington Public Library. Staff members reviewed all of the entries, trying to determine which couple would be the best fit for the very public wedding.

“Basically, we were looking for people who were really interested in a library wedding in particular,” Berg said. “They also had to be comfortable with it being a public wedding. The whole community is invited to this. Some couples wanted the free wedding, but maybe not necessarily the super public wedding.”

On Valentine’s Day, APS announced the winners of the free wedding via a special video by Bridgerton author Julia Quinn.

As part of their winning entry, Lettie and Bauer wrote a cookbook about their love story, according to Berg. Each page represented a part of their life together, with an accompanying recipe and explanation of why it was meaningful to them.

“They've included a lot of photos and all the important places in Arlington," Berg said. “It also talked about how libraries have played such an important role in their lives. They were the perfect combination of bookish and fun and interested in the community side of it as well.”

Once the winners were announced, the library and couple had just five months to prepare for the big day. Fortunately, the library had already planned and scheduled everything.

“We showed up and they said, ‘Do you like these colors?’ And we were like, ‘Yeah, great. All sounds good. We don't want to have to make those decisions,’” Lettie said. “What was really left to us were the big decisions. Things like, ‘Do you want a religious ceremony or a non religious ceremony? What do you want to say? What do you want the message of this wedding to be for everybody? How do you want to involve the public in the wedding?’ Things like that. It's really been where we've been focused.”

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Overall, the experience has been a positive one for Lettie and Bauer, who first met when they were students at the University of Chicago. Part of what they enjoyed about the process has been attending workshops at the library that helped them to interact with the public while preparing for the wedding

“We made our cake toppers at the printing workshop at the library,” Lettie said. “We printed our rings at the library that we're going to be giving to each other on Saturday. We made thank you cards. So we've been doing our best to kind of get out there and be part of everything that the library has to offer.”

Katie Lettie and Vincent Bauer will tie the knot Saturday, July 12, at the Central Library Lobby, which is located at 1015 North Quincy St. in Arlington. Library Director Diane Kresh will officiate the ceremony, which takes place 4-4:30 p.m. A cocktail hour is scheduled for 4:30-5:15 p.m., giving the public an opportunity to congratulate the newlyweds. A private reception will follow at 5:15 p.m. to allow Lettie and Bauer an opportunity to celebrate with their family and friends.

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