Hana & Brandon

Their family also includes Pugh’s son, Ceron, 8—who was the catalyst for the two eventually meeting at the altar.

Scott and Pugh overlapped at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School for one year (he was in 8th grade; she was in 6th grade) but they never crossed paths. “We have a lot of common friends, but somehow, we never met,” says Scott.

Fast forward to the first Charm City Live Festival in 2022, and Scott—a stickler for being on time—was “impatiently sitting in a chair waiting to be interviewed because somebody had gotten behind and I was upset.” And then, out of corner of his eye, he sees a “young woman, and who I assumed to be her son, pointing at me.” It was Hana and Ceron.

Ceron had always wanted to meet the mayor. “He’s just into government and things that you wouldn’t expect a little kid to be into—so, he always wanted to meet Brandon,” Pugh says. “He always wanted to go inside City Hall and get a tour.

“And so, when we were going to the festival, he kept asking, ‘Am I going to meet the mayor?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. It’s his event. Maybe we’ll see him. Maybe we won’t,’” says Pugh.

But as soon as they walked in, the first person they saw was Scott. “So, I pointed and said, ‘We get to see the mayor, after all.’” Scott walked over, and Pugh asked if he would take a photograph with her son.

Later, Ceron asked Scott’s staff if he could get a tour of City Hall. “Brandon is ear hustling, and hears us asking his staff, who was about to tell us no, and then he says, ‘Oh no, come on. I can show you inside.’ So I joke that my son is my wing man,” laughs Pugh.

A week later, Scott invited Pugh and Ceron to a Ravens game. “And we have been talking every day since,” she says.

The family now lives in the Frankford area of Northeast Baltimore, which neighbors Walther Gardens.

“We go there all the time for snowballs, so it’s important to us as a family,” Pugh says. Scott says he grew up getting his Christmas trees there.

They were sitting on the grounds one day, eating their snowballs—strawberry rose with organic marshmallow for her; root beer or wild strawberry for him—when Pugh whispered to Scott, “Do you think we could get married here?”

When owner Chris Heller came over to say his usual hello, Pugh asked if his team had ever hosted a wedding at Walther. Heller’s eyes lit up. He told her no, but that it was his dream to host a wedding since taking over the property in March 2023.

And so, on the morning of the Fourth of July, before Scott headed to work, Heller gave them a proper walkthrough of the space. It was perfect.

“I never imagined my dream of creating a bespoke home and garden experience, named after my grandmother, would have been the backdrop for such a momentous occasion—capturing the hearts of Baltimore’s first couple, Mayor Scott and Hana,” Heller tells us. “It was an honor to host this special union, and we are excited for the start of their next chapter as a married couple and family.”

Five weeks later, as guests milled around, Pugh was upstairs getting ready in a bright, beautiful, renovated room that acted as her bridal suite in the property’s farmhouse. “Chris has done a really, really great job with redoing the space,” says Pugh. “I was hiding out in there getting ready and peeking out of the window watching guests come in.”

Meanwhile Scott, Charm, and Ceron (dressed in non-wedding attire) were socializing with guests, but the fact that Pugh was missing didn’t raise any eyebrows.

“I’m typically late anyway, so nobody was wondering why I wasn’t on time,” laughs Pugh.

Scott was holding baby Charm and then used him as the perfect excuse to duck out for a few minutes, telling everyone, “His diaper is really full, I have to go change him.” The trio slipped out, and Scott and Ceron put on their suit jackets and boutonnieres. The plan was for Scott and Charm to walk down the aisle, followed by Ceron and Hana.

“We were actually worried that Charm was going to sleep through the ceremony, but he woke up upstairs,” says Scott. “And the great thing is, he woke up in a good Charm mood.”

Just before Scott and Pugh appeared, all the guests had been instructed by the DJ to head to a certain area for a photograph. Before that, the ceremony site had been completely hidden

“And then we actually watched from the window as they started to walk over,” says Scott. One by one, guests saw the sign that read, “Hana & Brandon Welcome You to Their Wedding.”

“When people saw the sign were like, ‘Wait, am I reading this correctly? Like, this is a wedding?” recounts Pugh.

But it became very obvious when she appeared in a wedding dress, escorted by Ceron.

“[That] was a really emotional moment, because I lost my father a few years ago, and everyone knows he was really important to me,” Pugh shares. “The visual of my son walking me down the aisle just got everyone.”

Once the vows started, Scott handed Charm off “to his twin, which is my dad,” Scott says.

The ceremony was “short, sweet, and simple,” says Pugh. They got rid of the traditions that felt like they didn’t make sense and kept the things that mattered to them, including a first dance to “Love Ballad” by R&B/funk band L.T.D, a cake cutting, and making their own toast. It was decidedly them.

“Brandon and I wrote our own vows, and our personalities came through,” says Pugh of the ceremony, which was officiated by Lynn Stewart Mays, a judge with Baltimore City’s 8th Circuit Court. (Originally, former mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was set to officiate, but she couldn’t make the new date.) “We were serious, we were funny, we were telling inside jokes. We just kept it true to us, and then we got right to celebrating afterwards.”

One of the most important things for Scott and Pugh was remembering family members who had passed away by placing their photographs on a bench during the ceremony. That included Pugh’s father and Scott’s paternal grandparents, maternal grandmother, and his cousin, who died in March. “She was like a sister to me,” Scott shares. “It’s as if they were all watching the ceremony with everyone else,” adds Pugh.

One of the bride’s few requests was a traditional “The Greatest City In America” bench at the venue. “I asked Brandon, ‘How can we make this happen?’” It turns out, even if you are mayor, the answer is paying to get one made and delivered. It was a delightful focal point of the wedding and will soon be moved from Walther Gardens to their backyard.

“It was important for us to weave Baltimore through the wedding in ways that weren’t the usual, like Old Bay and Berger cookies, and so we were thinking about how to be creative with that.” The bench checked that box, along with Walther Gardens. “It’s so rich in Baltimore history because it’s the oldest snowball stand in the country, that’s where the egg custard was created,” adds Pugh.

Also important to the couple? Good food. “We knew we didn’t want a traditional, stuffy sit-down dinner with, you know, dry chicken breast,” she says. So, instead they had “elevated chicken boxes” alongside Maryland style crab cakes, and, of course, snowballs. “We were able to weave Baltimore through the day in ways that were meaningful and true to us.”

That also included early-morning portraits. The two put on their wedding attire and went to a few of their favorite places around the city with their photographer, Alicia Wiley. One of the locations was the exact spot—a crosswalk—they met in front of City Hall. (Swoon!)

They went to Pugh’s favorite place in the city—Port Covington. And, since marriage is about balance, after all, they also stopped at the mayor’s favorite place—Camden Yards.

“Those are really special to us,” says Pugh. “Obviously we love the city so much, and we wanted to incorporate it.

A few people did spot the couple, notes Scott. (“I think we got away with it because they were older folks [who didn’t immediately post to social media],” laughs Scott.

So, they were able to keep it a complete surprise. (But, no surprise, they are just too busy for any sort of honeymoon right now.)

“I could not imagine having some huge, 300-person wedding somewhere with all the formalities and dryness,” says Pugh. “I’m just so happy that we did it this way, and we just stayed true to ourselves,” she says. “There’s no such thing as a perfect event, but I could not have asked for a better day.”