Erica Patrick Wedding Martins Crosswinds Greenbelt Md

Venue: Martin's Crosswinds, Washington, DC

Erica and I became very good friends sophomore year in college, at the University of Delaware. We were practically best friends for a year before we even started dating. We took an important step when we decided to study abroad together in Costa Rica, and that's where we fell in love. After we returned, we eventually moved in together. We graduated, got real jobs, and figured that marriage was the next important step for us.

Martin's Crosswinds is a beautiful location, and we had both our ceremony and our reception there. Everyone who came to the wedding stayed at a hotel nearby.
The planning part was certainly challenging. I had picked out the tuxes for my groomsmen, and she had picked the flowers. The bridesmaid's dresses were this great pink color, but it was hard to match that great pink color to anything else!
The morning of the big day, all the girls stayed behind to do makeup and hair, while the guys and I went out to play a round of golf, then hit up the bar for a couple of drinks, and we all met up at 7 p.m. for the ceremony. Needless to say, I felt relaxed and wasn't nervous at all.
Everything was going smoothly until the ring exchange. I just couldn't seem to get the ring on Erica's finger. I was fumbling with it, looking up and making a silly face, trying to play it cool. She was laughing the whole time. The moment lasted maybe five seconds, but man, it felt like five minutes. I finally did get it on, and the rest of the ceremony went smoothly.
We didn't have too much time for photos, and we had a pretty large wedding party who were difficult to organize. People kept running in and out to get drinks. The photographer did a good job, although there were some angles that I would have looked for differently. We wanted to get more family photos, too.
It's really important to budget enough time for photography, since every part of the wedding always takes longer than you plan it on paper. When we finally got everyone in the same place, the photographer came up with some pretty creative shots with the wedding party. She also got a lot of good candid photos.
Like I said, I hadn't been nervous at all. But when Erica and I finally made our grand entrance into the reception hall, I suddenly felt a little queasy, and had to step outside for a breath of air.
After the reception ended, we moved the party to the hotel bar, where we partied until the early morning with close friends and family. Erica's bridesmaids surprised us by decorating our hotel room with rose petals on the bed, and even leaving some leftover filet and crab cakes for us in the fridge. In the morning we met everyone for breakfast and said our goodbyes before heading off to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.