On April 16, 2019 we went to the Cloisters Castle in Lutherville, MD to take our engagement pictures with Kuralay of 1001 Angles Photography and got this magical result. Many of these are up on our "gallery" page!
SEE THE FULL GALLERY HERE. Password is "Daisy"
Shoot Maggie an email if you want the download code.
It all really starts with Tommy. Maggie met Jake at auditions a few times before that, but they didn't really interact much outside of "this is the song, this is the tempo." Anyone who's been in front of Jake in an audition room can agree, he looks a little grouchy. Needless to say, the first few times they crossed paths, Maggie left intimidated and Jake moved onto his next audition victim.
Then, in the summer of 2016, Jen Bevarelli was helping to produce "The Who's Tommy" with Open Circle Theatre. She enlisted Jake to music direct and convinced Maggie to audition even though she was going through an "I'm on a break from theatre" phase. In Jake's words, Maggie "fucking destroyed" the audition and "brought the house down" to secure her spot as the Acid Queen. (Maggie remembers it a little differently, she stumbled into the audition with her usual, determined "I'm going to be so awkward and charming that you will want to work with me" energy and spent the entire time picking apart what she did in the next room with Carl Williams and Jen.)
Maggie remembers saying to Carl "Jake intimidates me, so I've decided that we're going to be friends. Because you guys are friends. So clearly he's not too much of an asshole." At the beginning of the process, Jake was finishing up a show and had pneumonia, so he wasn't around as much. When he was finally able to join the cast's post-rehearsal hangouts at McGinty's, Maggie's plan to be friends was set in motion...kind of.
The first night that both of them kind of went "huh, that was different" was after drinks on a rainy night at Not Your Average Joe's where Jake convinced Maggie to stay after the Metro closed. He drove her to the Glenmont Metro station to pick up her car and then followed her home (20 minutes out of his way), staying on the phone with her the whole time, to make sure she got there safely before driving back to Alexandria.
The next night at rehearsal, Maggie and Carl were gossiping about boys during downtime because they are both secretly 15. Carl asked if Maggie thought anyone in the cast was cute and Maggie pointed to Jake. She immediately had to tell him to put a lid on his excited reaction. Carl asked if Maggie wanted him to kind of test the waters for her and Maggie agreed with the stipulation that he "at least attempt to be subtle." Unsurprisingly, Carl failed MISERABLY at subtlety. Both he and Jake had massive shit-eating grins for the remainder of rehearsal.
Soon after that, Jake asked Maggie if she wanted to grab drinks at Samuel Beckett's on their day off from the show. A weird dinner and movie night later, the rest is history.
Jake knew that he wanted this to be an epic, special experience that we could tell stories about for years to come and planned an elaborate production involving months of planning, more than 20 people, 9 locations, a limo, a performance, a costume change, a 21 clue scavenger hunt crossword puzzle, a lot of alcohol, and finally a yes on October 21, 2018 in the Sculpture Garden in front of the AMOR sculpture. Maggie adds, "because it wouldn't be Jake if it didn't involve a small army and if it wasn't super extra, complicated, and incredibly thoughtful."
Maggie and Jake's friend Autumn Seavey-Hicks had the first mission. Get Maggie out of the house for a day of pampering. Back in September, Autumn asked Maggie if they could go get their hair cut together at Aquilano Salon. Their friend Craig Miller (a company member at Keegan Theatre that has done shows with Jake) works there and is currently the only person that Maggie will allow to come anywhere near her hair with scissors.
Aquilano is usually closed on Sundays, but Craig graciously offered to open the salon just for us. Maggie's best friend Carl Williams texted her a few weeks later informing her that he was crashing this haircut date and turning it into a mini-Tommy cast reunion. Carl and Autumn got to their apartment at 9:30 that morning, and the day began. In Autumn's car, there was a bouquet of Gerbera Daisies waiting for Maggie, which are her favorite flower.
After haircuts, Autumn and Carl took Maggie to get a manicure at La Bona, which is where Maggie likes to get their nails done. When she arrived at the salon, there was another bouquet of Gerbera Daisies waiting for her at the check-in desk and their friend Jen Bevarelli was waiting there for the group.
Jake, working behind the scenes, ordered an Uber for them to go to Cheesetique for brunch. Cheesetique is a cute shop/ restaurant where Maggie and Jake had a great date a few months prior. When the waiter took them to their table, their friend Tina Ghandchilar was waiting for the group with another bouquet of Gerbera Daisies for Maggie.
After a tasty, cheese-centric brunch with plenty of mimosas, the group walked outside to find Jake's best friend Nate Rothstein waiting with another bouquet of daisies and a giant, blank, laminated crossword puzzle emblazoned with the title JAM SESSION. Behind the scenes, Jake was coordinating with the whole group via a giant group chat to tweak the plan because brunch took longer than expected.
Nate led them to a limousine, complete with red carpet, that was stocked with more champagne. Nate started giving Maggie crossword clues that were themed around Jake and Maggie's relationship and locations that were important to them.
The first clue took the group to the Silver Spring Black Box, where Jake and Maggie performed in The Who's Tommy. At the Black Box, the group picked up their friends Mikey Bevarelli, Val Rigsbee DuBreuil, and Gary DuBreuil who were all holding more flowers for Maggie. Since the group was behind the schedule, the clues about their Silver Spring cast haunts, Panera & McGinty's, were all given at once.
Back in the limo, Maggie got a video call from across the pond, James Rodgers and Carrie Braes, longtime friends of Jake's and new friends for Maggie, called with the next location clue. Once Maggie gave the correct answer, the limo proceeded onto the Keegan Theatre, where Jake is a company member.
At Keegan, they met up with Alexis Hartwick, Robbie & Kathleen Teague, and Carolyn Agan. The group led Maggie into the theatre where they sang her "Happiness" from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown and she sobbed the entire time.
After that, Kathleen (thank God) handed Maggie and the other members of the group some tissues before Maggie was given a clue that took her to the dressing rooms downstairs. Jake had arranged for her favorite dress and makeup to be there.
After Maggie got changed, she was given another clue that took them to the Sculpture Garden. Carl and Val helped a very overwhelmed Maggie out of the limo and led her over to where Jake was in front of the AMOR sculpture.
After Maggie said yes and they hugged all of the friends that they'd picked up throughout the day. Then, Jake and Maggie went back to the limo for one last clue. Maggie's friend Allison Aylward video chatted in with the final clue from Belfast to take them to Samuel Beckett's, where Jake and Maggie had their first date.
In case you were wondering, this is what Jake was reading off his phone when he was doing the asking
Maggie,
When I think back on the time before I met you, it’s all cloudy and irrelevant. None of it matters because it doesn’t include you. You are the best thing that I’ve ever had happen in my life and I thank God I met you every day. You take care of me. You push me to do better. You make me want to find new and exciting ways to impress you. You make me laugh. You let me cry on your shoulder. You are the fire that toasts my marshmallow.I know that separate we are great individually, but together we are an unstoppable force. We depend on each other and I honestly don’t know if I could live life without you in it.
Our anniversaries have always been a crazy, epic time. This is no exception. This whole celebration has been just another way for me to show how much I love you.
I want to find a new way to celebrate us every year, and I want to do it for the rest of our lives.
So what do you say Leslie Knope? Can I be your Ben Wyatt?
Will you marry me?