I flew down to DC a couple weeks ago to meet up with Stephanie and Lou to follow them around with my camera. Stephanie picked that particular weekend because she really wanted cherry blossoms. Unfortunately, it was so hot the weekend before that they all died off, all except a few hidden trees that Stephanie knew about – lucky us. She got her cherry blossoms! They are getting married later this year at a cottage in Cape Neddick, Maine.

I couldn’t stop laughing the whole time I was with them. We went all around their neighborhood, visited the Jefferson Monument, the arboretum, and hung out in cute downtown Alexandria. I am one of those people who always needs to know what kind of trees are around me. There was one we couldn’t identify and Lou had an app on his phone that will tell you what kind of tree a leaf is from. I love these two! As they showed me around their town (while pointing out secret speakeasies – WHAT?!) we kept stopping places for a nosh and a cocktail – just how I like to spend my afternoons! Lou is an amazing cocktail maker, and I had my first and second ever fizz cocktails – yum. Oh, and a manhattan that was the best manhattan I’ve ever tasted. Lou! Leave the recipe in comments, ok? 🙂 Once I got home I may have become slightly obsessed with angostura bitters in my bubbly water. ANYWAY!

I was dying over the wisteria flowing from all of the teeny narrow houses, the arboretum with the old capitol columns just hanging out in the middle of a field looking very post-apocoliptic, and of course Stephanie and Lou’s love for one another.