USNA Annapolis Calvert House Wedding | Cara & Matthew

Cara & Matthew were ready to have their wedding be a big celebration of love, happiness, health, and survival. “Nothing but smiles & laughter from start to finish,” Matthew said. It’s safe to say this was accomplished! Learn a little bit more about their relationship from Matthew’s perspective below.

From the groom’s perspective: “In the movies it is consistently the theme that young people meet at a bar, a party, or a crowded room and as the lead actress crosses through that crowd the lead actor falls in love at first site. Typically there is additional light on that actress and a catchy tune in the background driving the viewer emotional response towards one of love as well. Now despite this cliché, which most would find rather unbelievable, I fell in love with Cara the same way. Maybe it was my years of romantic comedy viewership or the fact that at a pool party in 2012 I saw the most beautiful woman I would ever lay eyes on. We had met in the past through other friends as we grew up in the same town, but that night I felt my heart skip a beat and knew I had to talk to her. You know you’re in love when time stops. It sounds very cliché again, but I’ll attempt to explain it. When you start talking to someone and nothing else exists, but that individual and the topic or your conversation it is an incredible phenomenon that I can only equate to a black hole. You are drawn in and there is nothing else until that conversation or moment is forced to stop. That night we stayed up until early the next day just talking about everything possible. At the time I was a sophomore going into my junior year at the Naval Academy and Cara was transitioning to the nursing program at LaSalle. The rush of feelings and need to be around her didn’t end that morning. Like all great millennials, we immediately started in on a series of text messages and phone calls, because the thought of not speaking to the other person was like removing a piece of yourself. As a young person in college, I’ll be the first to say that “long-distance” relationships are usually ones chalked up to a brief stint, or a lily pad to some other looming relationship built on firm ground. That distance never created a feeling of distance for Cara and I. The vast majority of our early relationship was forced into “long-distance” due to my military career path and her nursing goals. The name of the game became sacrifice. The most valuable thing in a human life is time and when two very type-A personalities with lofty career goals engage in a relationship time is even more valuable. The sacrifices made in order to facilitate the continuation of our relationship made our bond and love stronger than anything I had experienced. Cara has always been my rock, my biggest supporter, and the love of my life and I can’t imagine any day on this earth without her.”