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Courtship: In December 2014, when Phil Terhaar offered to buy Erika Eshleman a drink at a bar, she politely declined. “I definitely had my guard up,” she admits. Only later that night, after Phil had struck up a conversation with a few of Erika’s friends, did she fully acknowledge his presence—and eventually give him her phone number. When Phil added her contact as “Erica,” and she told him it was with a “K” instead, he cracked a joke: “Oh, so Kerika?" And it immediately broke the tension.
“All my friends were telling me to wait three days to text her,” Phil remembers, “but I definitely texted the next day. She was all I could think about.” Their first date was at Tarantino’s, a result of Phil’s Google search for romantic Italian restaurants halfway between his and her apartments in Chicago. A few weeks (and a couple dates) later, and it was New Year’s Eve. The two went together to a mutual friend’s party to celebrate. “The more friends of mine who he met that loved him,” Erika says, “it really solidified it for me.”
Proposal: In March 2016, Phil told Erika that he’d planned a weekend getaway for the two of them, and “even made the hotel reservation just in case she asked for the confirmation number,” he says. On the Friday that they were supposed to leave, Phil called Erika and apologized for having to work late—not an unusual occurrence for him—and told her they’d have to skip their trip. To make it up to her, he suggested a fancy dinner at her favorite restaurant the following night.
“I don’t know how I didn’t suspect something,” Erika says, “because he ordered a petite filet and barely ate any of it. Plus, he sweat through two shirts.” Phil had a few of his friends hiding in the crowd outside, ready with cameras. After pretending to order an Uber to leave—“Erika really pays attention to details, so I had to have everything just right,” Phil explains—he told her that they’d have to walk across the bridge because it was one-way, and the Uber wouldn’t be able to reach them.
As they walked across, one of Phil’s friends began playing the couples’ favorite song through a Bluetooth speaker—at which point Erika herself suggested taking a photo. At that moment, Phil got down on one knee, and his friends caught the whole proposal on camera. Afterward, Erika and Phil celebrated their engagement with a party Phil planned at a local bar. “All of our friends had known for two and a half months,” Erika says, “so my family came in all the way from Florida, and Phil’s from St. Louis."
Ceremony & Reception: Erika and Phil got married on March 4, 2017 with a ceremony at Graham Chapel on Washington University’s campus and reception at St. Louis Union Station's Grand Hall. “Because Phil had said he didn’t want to wait more than a year to get married,” Erika says, laughing, “I chose almost exactly one year later, so we’d have the most possible time to plan.” They were lucky with that choice, too, because it was one of the weekends in the spring when the weather perked up to a balmy 73 degrees—making for beautiful outdoor photos on Wash. U’s campus.
For the reception, Erika stuck with a mostly black and white color scheme “because Union Station is already so ornate, and I was going for something classic and elegant,” she explains. Because Erika and Phil have family and friends from all over, they chose to make the inside of their guest book a map. Guests were able to sign the state or country where they were from. And on the front was lettering that said, “You mean the world to us.”
The Details:
Ceremony venue: Graham Chapel at Washington University in St. Louis
Reception venue: St. Louis Union Station (Grand Hall)
Photography: Your Story Photo + Cinema
Wedding coordinator: Megan Goss
Cake: Sugaree Baking Company
Flowers: Les Bouquets
Band: Push the Limit
Hair & makeup: Blow Out Bar St. Louis
Videography: The Film Perspective
Dress: A Joyful Occasion
Shoes: Nordstrom
Jewelry: Kate Spade
Tux: The Black Tux
Stationery: A.M. Paperie
