Party of Two: This Couple Pulled Together Their Virginia Elopement in Just Eight Days

After a 13-year courtship, Melissa Colgan and Dan Schned were in no rush to get married. "We knew we'd want to keep things intimate, but we're both really close to our large families, so any wedding would be at least 200 people," says Melissa, a former style editor at Martha Stewart Weddings. "Plus, I knew planning a big event would distract us from our goals of saving for a house and establishing my interior-design business." Yet fate intervened, and when a once- in-a-millennium date presented itself last winter, they pulled off a magical elopement in a little over a week.

It started in January 2020, when they stopped into a jeweler in their D.C. neighborhood to replace some watch batteries and stumbled across the perfect ring—which once belonged to the wife of an ambassador to Greece. "I'm half-Greek," says Melissa, "so that was a sign it was meant for me."

Dan, who works for the U.S. Department of Transportation, spotted another sign from the universe—the cosmic version of a flashing neon billboard—when he realized that 02/02/2020 was just around the corner. "He's definitely a numbers geek," says Melissa affectionately. And this one was a humdinger: As Dan explains, "it's a palindrome, and would be the first one in more than 900 years and the last for more than a century. Plus, two represents the union of two people, and 2020 is associated with twenty-twenty vision, symbolizing our clearly looking toward our future."

Once she heard that explanation, after Dan proposed in their kitchen, Melissa was sold on the idea of almost-immediate nuptials. Dan called The Inn at Little Washington, in Washington, Virginia, a place Melissa had always wanted to stay. Since their target date happened to be off-season—and Super Bowl Sunday—he was able to secure a room. Melissa ordered three dresses from Net-a-Porter, chose a metallic stunner by The Vampire's Wife that made her feel "like a glass of Champagne," and boom: Wedding prep was done!

On Friday, January 31, they went to city hall to get their marriage license, which would allow them to self-officiate. And that Sunday they drove to the inn, where they strolled the grounds, sipped cocktails, and called loved ones to share their news. "We caught them all off guard!" says Melissa. "There was a lot of fun FaceTiming."

She and Dan exchanged vows they wrote for each other over dinner at the inn's famed three-Michelin-starred restaurant. The eight-course vegetarian meal was a high point, but their most memorable moment, Melissa says, was "driving to the inn through the Virginia countryside, belting out our favorite songs." Talk about a stirring duet.