Angelica Laws & Melisa Matthews

Sweet Surprise

Imagine this: Your good friends get engaged and invite you to celebrate at a local bar. Except, upon arrival, you learn that you won’t be raising a glass to an upcoming wedding—it’s happening today. To celebrate their love, Angelica Laws (32 and a wedding planner) and Melisa Matthews (34 and a photography teacher) did just that: They planned a surprise reception under the guise of an engagement party. Since Angelica is an event planner herself (you can read more about her work on page 73), she’s seen just about every wedding idea in the book. She also didn’t want to get bogged down with planning, which would make her nuptials feel like work. Angelica and Melisa decided to flip the script and creatively turned their engagement party into a wedding reception, abbreviating their planning journey while surprising loved ones along the way. “The most exciting piece of our wedding was that it was all a surprise,” says Angelica. They invited their closest family and friends to their Rockville, Maryland, backyard that morning for a private ceremony, followed by an ‘engagement party’ that afternoon with additional guests. “It was the only way that I could fully relax, get myself out of planner mode and be present,” Angelica adds. “By shaking up the traditions of a classic wedding, we put our own twist on the day to make it beyond perfect for us.”

Tender Tears

Even though the couple spent most of the morning together getting ready, Angelica (right) kept her dress a secret so she could have a special reveal to Melisa.

Beautiful Blooms

The floral arrangements for the day included clematis, cosmos, delphiniums, lisianthus, tulips, ranunculus and roses.

It was fitting that the backyard of the couple’s first home served as their ceremony venue, because it played a key role in their love story. Melisa recalls the very moment, in that house, when she knew that she and Angelica would be together forever. “While we were sitting on the floor of our empty new house drinking champagne, I knew Angelica would not only share a home with me; we would share an eternity,” says Melisa.

Melisa’s moment of clarity culminated the slow-and-steady growth of their relationship. After initially matching on a dating app (Melisa was Angelica’s first swipe), it took a month before Angelica was ready to say yes to a first date.

Theydatedlong-distance—withAngelica in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Melisa in Charlottesville, Virginia—for the first year of their relationship. “Since we didn’t live in the same city, the buildup for our first date was a slow burn,” recalls Angelica. “After chatting online for a week, we felt comfortable exchanging numbers. From there, we essentially became pen pals. We were constantly keeping up with one another via phone and text while living our separate lives. It was clear that there was an attraction, but we had both been burned before, so took it slow.”

Finally, Angelica couldn’t resist a first date. She took a risk and drove two-anda-half hours to Melisa’s place. “She made us, quite arguably, the worst stir-fry dinner at her apartment and our now-favorite black walnut old-fashioneds,” Angelica says. “She had a full night out planned for us, starting with a whiskey tasting her friend was hosting and ending the night at a gay bar in downtown Charlottesville. We laughed a lot, grew much more comfortable around one another and danced the night away. The hopeless romantic in me was absolutely smitten.”

Four years later, the couple purchased their first home and decided to use it as their wedding ceremony venue. They invited those dearest to them to “soak in our love story in a place that means so much to us. We wanted to share our full lives with them as we were about to commit to sharing our lives with each other,” says Angelica.

When thinking about what mattered most to them for their wedding, Angelica and Melisa were keen on keeping the day authentically theirs. “That meant foregoing a lot of the traditional wedding elements and doing what felt right to us,” says Angelica. “We didn’t hide from each other before our ceremony and instead spent time together with our family and friends. We also walked ourselves down the aisle individually, as a stance of us entering into this new phase of our lives completely free.”

The couple infused sentimental details throughout the day. “Melisa is from Suriname, a country in South America, and her first language was Dutch,” Angelica says. “She included some Dutch in her vows and our officiant opened with a few lines in Dutch as well. It was a beautiful way to subtly tie in her past and the language most of her family speaks.” They also incorporated tulips and Dutch blue design elements in honor of Melisa’s family from Holland.

Angelica’s mother died in 2019, and the couple prioritized including her in the day.

Ceremony Site: A private residence, Rockville, MD

Reception Sites: Lulu’s Winegarden; American Ice Co.; The LINE DC, Washington, DC

Photography: La Vie En Rose

Videography: Brian Schornberg

Event Planning + Design: Angelica & Co. Weddings

Floral Design: Springvale Floral

Officiant: Dr. Katie Kane (friend)

Gown: BHLDN

Suit: Anne Taylor

Shoes:

Angelica: Magosisters; Melisa: Urban

Outfitters

Accessories:

Angelica: Ana Ware

Engagement + Wedding Rings:

Angelica: Polamai; Melisa: ARTËMER

Hair + Makeup: Caitlyn Meyer Hair & Makeup

Stationery: Design: Angelica & Co. Weddings; envelopes: Cards & Pockets; vellum: Ivy and Betty Designs; printing: Moo

Rentals:

BBJ La Tavola; Select Event Group

Catering: Lulu’s Winegarden

Dessert: The Cheesecake Factory

Photo Booth: Maryland’s DJ

Favors: Crumbl Cookies

Transportation: RMA Worldwide

They designated a special chair for her in the front row and covered it with flowers and a favorite photo. “When Melisa and I walked down the aisle, we each carried a loose white flower that we placed on her chair,” Angelica says. “We asked our guests to take a moment of silence with us before we began.” She also brought back a childhood tradition. “Every holiday, my mom would take me and my sister to get our nails done. She called them ‘fancy nails’ because she had the artist paint flowers on a few fingers. For our wedding day, I treated myself to ‘fancy nails,’ knowing it would make my mama proud.”

Before the couple’s “engagement party” with their wider friend group, Angelica and Melisa exchanged personal vows in front of their closest family members (and a few of the couple’s chickens as VIPs).

In her vows, Melisa told Angelica that she is “not the woman of my dreams— you’re the woman I couldn’t even imagine existed.” Angelica, who recalls “crying every time I tried putting pen to paper” when crafting her vows, shared that “if I only had you for the rest of my life, I’d consider it a life worthy of living. There’s no ounce of me that wants a life without you.” They both ended their vows the same way, without having discussed it previously: “Angelica/ Melisa, I choose you.”

After officially tying the knot, the couple made their way to Lulu’s Winegarden, a bar in Washington, DC, to surprise their friends. “Melisa shocked the jaws right down from everyonewhenwethankedthemforsharing our wedding day with us,” Angelica says. Then they walked to another favorite bar, American Ice Co., to have a first shot—a pickleback—in lieu of a first dance. “It’s a favorite with our friends and signals the start of ‘one hell of a good time’ for us,” explains Angelica. At the end of the night, the smaller ceremony group had a familystyle dinner at The LINE DC, a nearby hotel. “We laughed, enjoyed each other, listened to some impromptu speeches and soaked in our first meal together as a married couple,” Angelica says.

Cool Collar

Instead of a bouquet or boutonniere, Melisa decked out the lapel of her wedding suit with fresh flowers.