Imagine this: Your good friends get engaged and invite you to celebrate at a local bar. Except, upon arrival, you learn that you won’t be raising a glass to an upcoming wedding—it’s happening today. To celebrate their love, Angelica Laws (32 and a wedding planner) and Melisa Matthews (34 and a photography teacher) did just that: They planned a surprise reception under the guise of an engagement party.
Since Angelica is an event planner herself (you can read more about her work on page 73), she’s seen just about every wedding idea in the book. She also didn’t want to get bogged down with planning, which would make her nuptials feel like work. Angelica and Melisa decided to flip the script and creatively turned
