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Home · Weddings

Bridal Bliss: Love by Design

Melanie designs events for a living, but when she met David, she had no clue just how close she was to planning her own special day.
Bridal Bliss: Love by Design
By Charli Penn · Updated October 28, 2020
Bride: Melanie Nicole Worthy, 37, Event Stylist

Groom: David Hernquist, 38, Math Teacher/Fiction Writer

Married Since: July 10, 2011

Wedding Location: Harvest Moon Café, Sonoma, California

Wedding Style: Casual and Chic

Open Your Heart
Melanie, a 37-year-old event stylist and mom, helps people plan memorable events for a living. But the day she logged in to her eHarmony.com account and met David, 38, a math teacher and fiction writer, she had no clue just how close she was to planning her own special day. They say when you know, you know. In Melanie and David’s case, the openness was instant and the love happened fast. “Things fell right into place,” says Melanie. “Early on we corresponded by email. We opened up our hearts and shared our dreams.” From the beginning, both David and Melanie were sure of the qualities they were looking for in the perfect partner. They even made up fun “job applications” for each other to fill out to be sure they knew what was most important to each other in a relationship. “Perhaps foolishly, we were completely trusting and as open as we knew how to be,” Melanie recalls. “But this foolishness paid off with a relationship based on openness and honesty and a willingness to say what we need.”

Playing House
Just like mommy, Melanie’s young daughter enjoys putting together a good party. One day her daughter decided to throw her mom and David a wedding. She planned the ceremony, the music, and the decorations. All her dolls attended the special occasion, and like good guests do, they all showed up bearing gifts for the happy couple.  When it came time to open them, inside one of the boxes Melanie found an unbelievable surprise – a wedding ring. “I screamed,” she recalls. “Then my daughter and I danced to Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies.’ If you want it than you better put a ring on it.” There they were, just eight months into the greatest love they’d ever known and a new and exciting chapter to their story was still to come.

Melanie and David were married five months later in a casual summer ceremony in California’s beautiful Sonoma wine country before their loved ones. Share their love!

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