It’s so crazy to look back and recognize some of the signs that popped up along the way, directing us and keeping us on the path toward our destiny, though totally unbeknownst to us at the time.
Patrick and Brian met by accident one night. Brian is a floral designer who was living in Atlanta at the time. He was in D.C. helping a client plan their wedding and met up with a friend for drinks afterward. That friend also knew Patrick and invited him out as well. Patrick, trying to decide whether to go out, asked another friend, Jake, to join too. Jake tried to discourage it, saying let’s just stay in and watch a movie; there’s no reason to go out. He said to Patrick, “You honestly think you’re going to meet your future husband tonight?”
“Low and behold, he did,” Brian told me.
The next sign came over breakfast, two days after they met, at a diner in D.C. “I was excited to be with him and wasn’t really thinking past that,” Brian said. “Then something hit me. I remember looking at him and feeling something like ‘wow this is something more than I thought,’ obviously not knowing what it would become.”
What it became, soon after that, was a strong attachment to one another, a long-distance relationship, happy moments of picking one another up from airports. And then Brian proposed. Patrick thought they were just getting ready to go to brunch. Then Brian told him to walk out onto the balcony. Patrick looked down and saw his friends there, wearing all white and holding silver balloons that said “Will you marry me?” Patrick began crying, and the champagne began popping.
Patrick and Brian chose Charleston for their wedding because Brian is from the South and they both just love this city. Their entire wedding day took place at the historic William Aiken House on King Street, with an outdoor ceremony in front of the carriage house, and a tented reception. The dance party was all love and wild celebration, as it should have been. The night ended sweetly with a pedicab ride back to their hotel at The Vendue.
So the next time you have that gut instinct to go out, even if you’re not sure why, go with it and see what happens. You could meet your future spouse that night and have a great story to tell, just like this one.
Check out more great stories like this on our LGBTQ Wedding Photography page.