E8 OnLove NUPTIALS TORRE PHOTOGRAPHY
Elizabeth Mills & Jay Hoffman
Elizabeth Mills is a conference producer. Jay Hoffman is an engineer. They are 24 and live in Arlington.
Wedding date: July 17.
Locations: St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church in Middleburg and Belmont Country Club in Ashburn.
Guests: 140.
How they met: The two were introduced at Jay’s birthday party nearly four years ago while students at the University of Virginia. Elizabeth reached out for a handshake; Jay went in for a big hug. They began dating several months later.
The proposal: A few years later, Elizabeth and Jay ended up living 300 miles apart while she attended graduate school in North Carolina and he worked in Northern Virginia. During a weekend reunion in Charlottesville, they took an evening walk to look at the stars. Jay proposed in front of the Rotunda on the campus’s scenic lawn, and they got applause from passersby.
The wedding: The couple threw a preppy-casual summer affair, dressing their attendants in khaki and navy and featuring strolling guitarists during the cocktail hour. Jay’s uncle officiated.
The honeymoon: The newlyweds spent five days in Paris before traveling to Switzerland.
— Michelle Thomas by Ellen McCarthy
Edward “Ted” Allen has always tak- en his own, circuitous route in life. Rather than go straight to college af- ter high school, he traveled to Aus- tralia and got a job leading tourists out to the barrier reefs. Friends he made there lured him to England. Next he moved to Paris to work with an inter- national rights group that would even- tually ship him to Guatemala. After 18 months in that country, Allen decided it was time for higher education, so at 26 he enrolled at Brown University as a Latin American studies major. His romantic history has been equal-
ly rambling.
By 38, Allen, who moved to Washing- ton in 2001 and is now a consultant with a Homeland Security contractor, considered himself “pretty much of a failure at making relationships work.” Sometimes he missed the boat, not tell- ing women how he felt until it was too late. Other times he stuck around too long, staying with a girlfriend when he knew things weren’t going to work out. “I’ve always taken a long time about
figuring out how to do things the right way,” he says.
ASICO PHOTO
Claudine Roshanian & Alex Hoover
Claudine Roshanian is a marketing coordinator. Alex Hoover recently graduated from law school. They are 25 and live in Vienna.
Wedding date: Aug. 7.
Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel in Tysons Corner. Guests: 110.
How they met: On the first day of class for their sophomore year at George Washington University, Alex approached Claudine to join her group for a semester-long project. Within weeks, the two were chatting more about shared interests (“The Simpsons” and Weezer) than their class project.
The proposal: After a dinner out, Alex and Claudine visited the National Christmas Tree, as they had each winter as students. Alex proposed as the theme song to “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” began playing over the speakers. After Claudine said yes, Alex surprised her by coordinating their friends to greet them at Napoleon, a night spot in Adams Morgan.
The wedding: The ceremony and reception reflected a hybrid of the couple’s Persian Baha’i and Catholic backgrounds, incorporating traditional Catholic vows and a Persian sofreh spread. Their reception included a nod to Alex and Claudine’s mutual love of the Beatles — table escort cards were designed to look like vintage concert tickets, and nearly all of the selected songs were by the band.
The honeymoon: The newlyweds relaxed at a bed and breakfast in Napa Valley, then toured San Francisco.
— Michelle Thomas CELEBRATION Lots of heart, soul and edible delights go into their big day by Ellen McCarthy In planning his wedding to Jesus Sal-
gueiro, Art Smith did not think small. Oprah Winfrey’s former chef, the own-
er of Art and Soul in the District and Ta- ble 52 in Chicago, wanted his big day to be comfortable, extravagant and new- smaking. So Saturday’s affair was a day-long
event with plans for the following ele- ments: An 8 a.m. run with 200 people to the Lincoln Memorial, where spiritualist Marianne Williamson would bless the couple. (Smith has lost 85 pounds in the past year and wanted wellness to be a priority for the wedding.) 450 guests for a midday barbecue at Art and Soul in the Liaison Hotel. On the menu: fried chicken, coleslaw, potato sal- ad, baked beans and more than 300 pounds of meat. (That wellness focus was tempered by pulled pork sand- wiches.) Fourteen executive chefs, including barbecue legend Myron Mixon, former “Top Chef” producer Lee AnneWong and James Beard Award-winner Michelle Bernstein.D.C. chef Carla Hall made gra- nola to fuel the morning runners. More than 35 cases of wine; five cases of vodka; 55 cases of water.
A surprise performance by the 10-man a cappella group Straight No Chaser. Af- ter the wedding, the group planned to take off for its regular gig at Harrah’s in Atlantic City. A nine-tier cake by Duff Goldman’s team at Charm City Cakes, of the Food Network show “Ace of Cakes.” The cela- don-colored cake was to be accented by white gum paste flowers and include lay- ers of white chocolate raspberry, almond amaretto cream and cardamom pista- chio. Six security officers working from morning until night. A six-hour nighttime pool party on the hotel’s roof. 400 individual pizzas made by New York City’s Keste Pizzeria & Vino. 600 cupcakes with custom fondant ic- ing by Georgetown Cupcake. Flavors in- clude: red velvet, salted caramel, peanut butter fudge and vegan chocolate. Music by Virginia Beach DJ Eric Jones. Gift bags for each guest, to include sandals by Okobos Footwear. (The com- pany’s cushy flip-flops usually retail at $80.)
Smith and Salgueiro, an artist, got en-
gaged at Smith’s 50th birthday bash in March. The two met more than 10 years ago at a flower shop in Miami where Smith was ordering an arrangement for
bill to legalize gay marriage late last year. Salgueiro had cancer three times — in his brain, lung and large intestine — and the legal protections of marriage hold partic- ular value for the couple. They also wanted the wedding to be a
grand public statement celebrating the evolution of gay rights. And Smith cred- its Oprah with shaping his philosophy on hospitality: “She told me, ‘Always, your best,’ ” he says. “If you serve champagne, it should be the best champagne you can afford.”
KIPLING SWEHLA
HAPPY COUPLE: Salgueiro and Smith met more than 10 years ago.
Oprah. They were set up a year later by a mutual friend and have been together since. They started talking about getting hitched when the D.C. Council took up a
Smith won’t say whether Oprah would be there or name other VIP guests — ex- cept his 75-year-old mother, Addie Mae Smith of Jasper, Fla. In some ways, Smith treated the wed- ding like a giant fundraiser. In lieu of gifts, he and Salgueiro asked for dona- tions to Common Threads, the nonprofit they founded six years ago. The organiza- tion attempts to bring children of differ- ent backgrounds together through cook- ing classes and arts programs. Smith’s birthday celebration raised close to $1 million for the charity, and he was hoping to hit that mark again. “Our goal is that at the end of the day people had a good time and enjoyed themselves and that maybe we put some- thing in their heads for them to think about,” Smith says.
mccarthye@washpost.com
But by spring 2009, he’d begun to feel as though he’d smartened up about relationships. And part of that, he thought, included the recalibration of his expectations. He stopped hoping to find an ideal woman with whom he’d feel completely comfortable. His expectations were particularly low as he dragged himself to a Sunday afternoon party at Taberna del Alabar- dero in the District. Allen was a regular at the Spanish restaurant, but he wasn’t in the mood to socialize the day of its 20th anniversary celebration. But walking through the door of the
restaurant, he looked up at a makeshift stage to find two female flamenco dancers in dramatic red dresses — and couldn’t take his eyes off one of them.
“but also I just think I noticed right away that the way she carried herself was a way that I really liked. She was obviously someone who valued herself as a person.” He spent the next few hours devising
a plan to meet her. Nidiana Paredes, a graphic designer for whom flamenco is a hobby, had changed from her costume into sweat pants and was making her way to the exit when a woman stopped her. “Are you single?” the woman asked. “There’s a guy who really, really wants to meet
weeks, then invited him out to a friend’s birthday celebration at an Ar- lington bar.
KLMNO
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ADRIAAN HUYS/OOSTENDE, BELGIUM
RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PERSON: Edward “Ted” Allen says timing is important. Had he met Nidiana Paredes five years ago, it might not have worked, he says. “She was just so beautiful,” he says,
“I nearly fell out of my chair when I
saw her name,” Allen recalls. He ac- cepted, and for the next week they traded increasingly long messages sev- eral times a day. “It was a little schoolboy-ish for me, the anxiety of, after I sent the e-mail, ‘How long is it gonna be before I get an e-mail back?’ . . . I felt a sense of antici- pation growing about the date that was very nice,” he says.
Surrounded by her friends at the bar,
“It’s so much easier than I ever thought it could have been”
Nidiana Paredes & Edward Allen
you.” In fact, Paredes was single for the
first time in her adult life. Since high school, the Venezuela native had gone from one long-term boyfriend to an- other and now, at 31, she was deter- mined to stay on her own for a bit. Plus, the man in question didn’t look that cute. She declined the offer and turned to go when another man walked by. “That was the guy,” the woman said. “ ‘What?’ ” Paredes re- sponded. “I’d been looking at the wrong guy but I didn’t know it.” Allen was called over and after a
brief conversation, he gave Paredes his e-mail address. She didn’t write for a couple of
they focused on each other and spoke in Spanish, allowing Paredes to relax in a way that doesn’t usually happen when she’s talking in her second lan- guage. Two days later, Easter Sunday, he brought her flowers before a game of tennis and, learning that she didn’t have dinner plans, invited her to cel- ebrate the holiday at his sister’s house. “ ‘This is like a second date, and he wants me to meet his family?’ ” she re- members thinking. “I’m like, ‘Yes! I’m going.’ ”
By the end of that night, her resolve
to stay single had vanished. “I was like, ‘I want to see this guy again. I want to be with him. Everything is so nice — I really want more of that.’ ”
In the past, Paredes had had her
heart broken by guys who were more interested in partying than being with her. Allen seemed ready for something more serious. He came to her apart- ment for dinner the next night, and ev- ery night that week. After three months, Allen invited Pa- redes on a family hiking trip in Peru and by the end of the summer, he gave up his apartment to move into hers. In time, he began to think he’d been wrong to give up hope on finding the kind of love he’d dreamed of as a younger man. His pensiveness was cut by her vivacious energy; his strengths seemed stronger around her. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people that it’s totally different from what I thought. I mean, relation- ships without a doubt are hard work . . . but there should be an element of it that’s a pleasure,” he says. “It clicked for me: This isn’t that hard. And that’s great.” He also thinks it’s as much about
timing, and becoming the right per- son, as meeting the right person. Had he been introduced to Paredes five years ago, he says, it might not have worked. In May, as they planned a European
vacation to celebrate his 40th birthday and squabbled over the itinerary, he decided to give her a diamond ring. Standing in her pajamas, Paredes be- gan to cry. On July 12, they were wed in a civil ceremony at Taberna del Alabardero. A month later they exchanged vows be- fore 20 guests at the Chapel of Hof Bla- delin in Bruges, Belgium. The couple will celebrate with Paredes’s family in Venezuela later this year. “My friends are like, ‘What you’re liv- ing is like a fairy tale. . . . You are so lucky,’ ” she says. “I guess I am.” In Allen’s mind, the happy ending is
that “it’s so much easier than I ever thought it could have been.”
mccarthye@washpost.com
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