Eric insists that the first time he said hi to Meaghan, in his own living room, she flat out ignored him and never said hi back. And it wasn't until months later that they would meet again. According to Meaghan, the soon-to-be-opthomologist had no contacts or glasses. She “literally did not see him.”
Meaghan’s twin sister, Jacquie, was dating Eric’s roommate at MIT, and when the two broke up, Meaghan saw what a genuine friend Eric was to both Jackie and his roommate, working to maintain a strong friendship with both. To Meaghan, who thought at first that Eric came across as a bit cocky, she thought to herself “I guess he’s not so bad, and he's kind of cute.”
“Eric is a really caring person.” Meghan recalls the time where after they got out of a movie, and were starting to drive out of the parking lot, Eric saw a couple pushing their handicapped son in a wheelchair through an epic rainstorm without any kind of protection. Eric stopped his car, grabbed his only umbrella out of the back and gave it to the couple and their son.
Eric planned to propose to Meaghan on Valentine’s Day 2013 in Boston where they live and had arranged for a friend to photograph the proposal by telling Meaghan that his buddy had just bought a new camera and wanted to test it out. What better way than a few photos of them before they headed out to see the musical Jersey Boys. A few weeks before Valentine’s Day Eric went back to his hometown of Harlingen, Texas and had a ring made for Meaghan at a jeweler owned by a family friend. The ring wasn't going to be ready for a few more days so Eric had it shipped back to Boston. The ring never made it. Eric worked from home for ten days waiting for the ring to arrive. Every day he called USPS customer service and every day he got excellent help from a person who was determined that they could find the location of his package, and each day’s call ended with the same variation on, We have no idea where your package is…We are sooo sorry. At first, there was an epic blizzard in Boston so Eric staying home from work made sense, but after about day three, when the snow started to melt, Eric couldn't tell Meaghan why he never left the house between the hours of 8 and 5, every day, for ten days. Eric, dejected, called off the photo shoot with his friend, but on the morning of Valentine's Day his ring arrived…the proposal was back on.
Meaghan never suspected Eric’s proposal. Earlier, when they had spent Christmas with Meaghan’s family, Meaghan thought he would propose there, explaining later what Eric said to her, “Meaghan, I would never propose on such a corny day…and then he did!” When Eric suggested that they set up a ‘fake proposal’ shot for his friend to take pictures of Meaghan thought nothing of it saying, “I did think that he would pretend to propose to me because that’s just something he would do.”
“I'm really sarcastic,” Eric says laughing. “She doesn't always understand my humor.”
So Meaghan played along, playfully covering her eyes when Eric knelt down in an icy puddle underneath the grandstand at Boston Commons and stuck his palmed hands toward her. When Meaghan opened her eyes Eric had placed the open ring-box in his hands. After a lot of tears, and hugging with Eric still knelt in the puddle, the next words out of Meaghan's mouth were, “I'm really cold. Can we please go to U- Burger?”
Meaghan and Eric chose Roger Williams Park Casino in Providence, RI as their wedding venue because they wanted a space that felt private. Meaghan's family was all really close to Providence and a lot of their mutual friends were in the Boston area where Eric went to school and where they both live now. The historic old building feels very intimate and is used only rarely for weddings. The casino is surrounded by greenery and trees and a lot of open space. Many thanks to Kevin Trimmer for second shooting the wedding with me!
