erin + nick | elegant historic hampton mansion engagement
The number 13 has always been Nick’s lucky number (ps: it’s actually my family’s lucky number too!) and so it was only fitting that on June 13, 2007, Nick asked Erin to be his girlfriend and they became a couple… in the hallway at the end of an eighth grade school day!
Erin and Nick have been through so much together in the course of their 13 year relationship leading up to their Maryland wedding day; having the honor of getting to know them and documenting their love story has been nothing short of incredible… from our very first conversation nearly a year ago, I could immediately see and understand how Nick’s favorite thing about Erin is her thoughtfulness.
While the pandemic threatened to move their wedding to 2021, and steal the perfect wedding date from them (originally planned for June 26, 2020… 13 years and 13 days exactly from the day they started dating), an incredible silver lining emerged during all of the wedding postponement conversations. The stars in fact aligned, and they are going to be able to get married on June 13, 2020 after all (which was the date they originally wanted!) – in a smaller, more intimate ceremony in Columbia, Maryland where they first met and attended grade school together. I’m pretty sure there won’t be a dry eye during their backyard wedding ceremony.
In Erin’s words, how they met (I still can’t get over how they’ve been together for half of their lives!):
We met at Harper’s Choice Middle School in Columbia, Maryland, at the beginning of sixth grade. We had our very first period class together that year, as well as a few others, but didn’t know each other all that well. Still though, I have a memory of sitting with my best friends that year blushing at talking about thinking he was cute. We got to know each other a little more over the next couple of years in orchestra (both playing the violin). The oldest photo I have of the two of us is that December, during our orchestra concert – I’m looking over my shoulder at Nick, and it’s so precious! In eighth grade, we had most of our classes together again, and I started talking to my friends (at those stereotypical middle school sleepovers!) about how cute Nick was, and how much I liked him, but didn’t think he’d ever really noticed me. Just before valentines day that year, they convinced me to tell him how I felt. I composed an elaborate note to be slipped to Nick during English class on valentine’s day, but a snow day pushed it to the next day. I think I wanted to crawl under my desk and die of embarrassment when I saw him open and read it! He responded the next day with a note of his own that thanked me for wishing him a happy valentine’s day, but told me that he didn’t feel the same way, and hoped we could just be friends. Since we were the two kids in school who weren’t cool enough to be on AIM with everyone else, he also included his email address, and we started exchanging emails. Over the course of the next few months, we started emailing every day, eventually a hundred times a day, talking all night after school about everything and nothing, and becoming closer and closer friends. A couple of weeks before the end of the school year, Nick stopped me in the hallway at the end of the school day, and passed me a new note saying that his feelings had changed, that he really liked me, that he hoped I still felt the same way, and asking me to be his girlfriend. I was over the MOON! I wrote back a note the next day to say yes, and passed it to him on June 13, 2007. Thirteen has always been Nick’s lucky number, so he and his best friend Ethan had decided that was the right day for him to ask me.
And now, the proposal in Nick’s words:
I proposed at the national cathedral in DC on April 21, 2019. We had been there before when we lived in DC, and I knew that the grounds and gardens were beautiful and would be perfect for pictures. April 21 was also Easter, so I figured it would be a good excuse for us to be dressed up nicely without creating suspicion. We were back in DC for the long weekend for the wedding of one of Erin’s best friends. Erin was the officiant for her best friend’s wedding on Saturday, and part of the bridal party, so when she had to be up in the bridal suite at 8:30 am for hair and makeup, it left me plenty of time to head over to the Cathedral with a good friend that Erin used to work with in DC to scope out the grounds, figure out where the best hidden vantage points for pictures would be, where the sun was, how we could approach the gardens so that we were aligned for pictures and also not make Erin suspicious about what we were doing there. Neither Erin nor I go to church very often anymore, and she most definitely did not want to go, but because it was Easter I convinced her that it was probably the right thing to do. Despite calls for rain all weekend, we had perfectly sunny skies. I had the Uber drop us off well out of the way so that we would approach the cathedral perfectly in line with where our friend would be hiding with his camera, and managed to time our approach perfectly so that the hundreds of people at the cathedral for easter were actually in the church just as service was beginning, which left us all alone on the grounds. The church bells were actually ringing as I got down on one knee and surprised Erin with a proposal that couldn’t have gone any better or more according to plan.
Erin is brilliant, and a meticulous planner, and just generally super thoughtful and aware, so I thought there was little to no chance of me pulling off a surprise proposal, but because she was so focused on her friend’s wedding, and delivering a beautiful service, and ensuring that her friend had the wedding of her dreams, she was completely unaware of my plans.
We spent some time just us in the gardens, and then raced home to easter dinner where Erin only expected to see her family and mine, but I had also secretly arranged for all of our closest friends from home to be there waiting to surprise her, and help us celebrate our big day.
I’ve always believed everything happens for a reason and you both are proof that good things come to those who wait… I CAN NOT WAIT to watch you marry the love of over half your lives, 13 years in the making on June 13th in an intimate, small and ridiculously meaningful wedding ceremony among the presence of your closest friends and family!
Let’s get you MARRIED!
