“Eric said there was no such thing as a sexy wedding dress. So… I tried.” – Jessica on the morning of her wedding
There are a lot of things Eric didn’t think would happen. Another is that he would ever get married. And yet there he was, and there she was, in a clearly VERY sexy wedding dress. Getting married.
I love Jessica and Eric’s story. They met when they were children, at a hotel pool in Minneapolis during a work trip Jessica’s father brought her on. They were 10 and 14. They played together along with her sister, her babysitter, and Eric’s cousin. After the trip ended, Jessica and Eric exchanged addresses and became old-fashioned pen pals, which is what we all did back then before there was email. Jessica and Eric exchanged letters for years, and eventually kept in touch through social media when that became available.
In 2010, 15 years after they had last seen one another in person, they decided on a whim to have a little reunion in Las Vegas. That was all it took. They knew during those three days together that there was something special between them. Three more years after that, and there was Eric, proposing to Jessica on his couch in Jacksonville, Florida.
We have known Jessica for many years through photography circles, as she is a wedding photographer herself. We met Eric for the first time when we all met up in Key West, Florida, for their engagement session. We loved him immediately. He’s funny, smart, laid back, and VERY into Jessica. They had an adorable, quirky, unique outdoor ceremony under an ancient oak tree at Jacksonville’s Treaty Oak Park, and a reception in the courtyard at the Jacksonville Downtown Library.
I bet Eric never thought he’d end up marrying a girl he met on a random trip when he was 14. Or that she’d leave California for him. Or that she’d find a sexy wedding dress. And, well, Eric probably also never thought he’d watch his wife get a steamy lap dance from one of her best friends in the middle of the dance floor, and then get one himself from the same friend as his wife looked on and cheered. But all of those things happened.
So what is the lesson here? Expect the unexpected, be open to an ever-changing path, and life will give you surprises you never even dreamed of.