Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #41

Couple: Janaka Bowman and Daryl Lewis

Date of Wedding:  June 9, 2007

Place: Duke University Chapel (Durham, NC)

Officiant: Rev. Johnny Hill

Fun facts: 

The bride and groom met during their first year of college at Duke.

Their wedding featured a "Pretty in Pink" theme with Breast Cancer Awareness favor cards to honor Daryl's late mother and her fight against breast cancer.

The couple's story was featured on Good Morning America that fall.

The couple celebrated their wedding night with friends eating tacos at their favorite Durham restaurant, Cosmic Cantina.

The bride's older sister served as the wedding coordinator, decorated the entire venue, touched up the bride's hair, and was a member of the wedding party.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #40

Couple: Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian

Date of Wedding:  

Place: Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans, LA)

Officiant: Mackie Shilstone

Fun facts: 

The wedding officiant was the bride's "tactical trainer" and had to be certified to conduct the marriage ceremony.

The bride wore a strapless Sarah Burton for Alexanders McQueen gown complete with a cape.

After the ceremony, the bride changed into a custom-made feathered gown. by Versace. 

The couple's first dance was to the Beauty and the Beast theme song, "Tale as Old as Time."

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #39

Couple: Holly Robinson and Rodney Peete

Date of Wedding:  June 10, 1995

Place: home of Leslie Moonves, chairman and chief executive of CBS, in West Los Angeles, CA

Officiant: Rev. Jesse Jackson

Fun facts: 

The couple started dating after actress Lela Rochon, a mutual friend, invited the bride to a picnic hosted by the groom.

After dating for a year, the groom proposed to his bride on the set of the 1990s sitcom, "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper," which she was starring in at the time.

300 guests attended the wedding ceremony.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #38

Couple: Kendrea Tannis and Ángel J. Gallardo

Date of Wedding:  October 23, 2010

Place: The Pergola at the Duke Gardens (Durham, NC)

Officiant: Dr. William C. Turner

Fun facts: 

The bride and groom met in a Divinity School class while the bride was in law school.

The couple honeymooned in Italy where they attended an AC Milan v. Juventus game in Milan.

The couple got engaged and married in the exact same location.

The couple dated for a little over a year and were only engaged for 4 months.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #37

Couple: Tilola L. Mitchell and Ryan Isaac Robinson

Date of Wedding:  July 21, 2012

Place: Johnston Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church (Clayton, NC)

Officiants: Rev. Theodore Breeden, Sr., Apostle Addie M. Rawls, and Dr. Joseph E. Perkins

Fun facts: 

The couple met at the Clayton Branch of the National Association of University Women's (NAUW) Green and White Ball.

On December 18, 2011, the groom asked the bride to marry him while wearing a big red bow.  Surrounded by family, she said yes.

Both the bride and groom are educators with the Wake County Public School System and they love doing what they do to shape the lives of youth through music and mathematics.

Ryan and Tilola truly make a Perfect Pitch!

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #36

Couple: Carolyn Watson and Andrew Young

Date of Wedding:  March 28, 1996

Place: Home of U.S. Ambassador to South Africa James Joseph (Cape Town, South Africa)

Officiant: Reverend McKinley Young (head of AME Church in South Africa)

Fun facts: 

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu gave a blessing after the ceremony.

The couple honeymooned at the Sun City gambling resort, the Kruger National Park Game Reserve, and Victoria Falls.

The bride wore an off-shoulder eggshell-colored lace caftan designed by Dali Tambo, son of African National Congress leader Oliver Tambo.

The couple took their vows again in the United States two months after their South African wedding ceremony.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #35

Couple: Charlotte Tomlinson and Richmond Sanders

Date of Wedding:  1850

Place: Smithfield, NC

Officiant: Couple jumped the broom since enslaved people could not legally marry.

Fun facts: 

The groom was born around 1825 and the bride was born around 1831.  They lived on different slave plantations.

They began acting as husband and wife in 1850.

After Emancipation, the couple went to their local courthouse to make their marriage legal.  They appeared before the Clerk of Court in Johnston County, NC on March 10, 1866.

The couple had 5 children before Emancipation and 5 children after Emancipation.

By 1879, the couple had amassed over 100 acres of land on the very property where the groom had been enslaved.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #34

Couple: Isabel Washington and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Date of Wedding:  March 8, 1933

Place: Abyssinian Baptist Church (New York City)

Officiant: Rev. William P. Hayes and Rev. George Simms

Fun facts: 

The bride was a dancer and actress who appeared on Broadway several times in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Spectators began to congregate near the church 3 hours before the ceremony began.

3,000 guests packed into the church with hundreds more standing outside in the rain.

The church was decorated with potted palms, ferns, and four jardinieres of long-stemmed roses.

The bride wore a dawn blue crepe dressed trimmed with lace.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1945.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #33

Couple: Beyonce' Knowles and Shawn Carter (Jay-Z)

Date of Wedding:  April 4, 2008

Place: Groom's penthouse in New York City

Officiant: Pastor Rudy Rasmus

Fun facts: 

The couple invited only 40 guests to the private ceremony.

The couple chose not to have a wedding party.

The bride's mom designed her strapless ivory wedding gown.

70,000 white dendrobium orchids, the bride's favorite flower, were flown in from Thailand.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #32

Couple: Krystal Reddick and Jonathan Pollard

Date of Wedding:  May 25, 2018

Place: Park in New York City & New York City Clerk's Office

Officiant: Pastor Jeffrey Crenshaw

Fun facts: 

The bride is a former high school English teacher and she is currently pursuing a second career as a social worker.

The bride and groom both attended Duke University and graduated in the same class; however, they did not actually meet one another until 9 years after graduation.

They credit Facebook for (re)connecting them.

The bride is the one who proposed!

The couple had an intimate courthouse wedding.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #31

Couple: Staria Ray and Brian Kaesi Gilmore

Date of Wedding:  September 19, 2009

Place: The Hall & Gardens at Landmark (Garner, NC)

Officiant: Rev. Theodore Breeden

Fun facts: 

The couple met Memorial Day Weekend 2005 in Miami, FL, through mutual friends.  The bride had originally declined to go on the trip but one of her best friends talked her into going.

After the wedding, the couple took a ride in the Excalibur pictured below.  They rode to their hotel where their car was parked.  They immediately changed clothes and drove to their house.  When they arrived on their street, it was lined with cars on both sides.  Their house was full of their closest friends and family, so they had a fight party (Mayweather vs. Marquez) while packing for their 6AM flight to their honeymoon destination.

The couple has two sons.  They enjoy traveling and attending music concerts together.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #30

Couple: Valerie Richardson and Maynard Jackson, Jr.

Date of Wedding:  October 7, 1977

Place: Home of Dr. and Mrs. Ford T. Johnson (parents of the bride's sister-in-law) on Davis Avenue (Richmond, VA)

Officiant: Rev. Miles Jones (chairmen of the Richmond School Board)

Fun facts: 

The private wedding ceremony was held three days after the groom won a second term as Mayor of Atlanta, GA.

The couple met at a gathering hosted by singer Roberta Flack at her home.

The bride earned an MBA from UPenn's Wharton School of Finance.

The bride wore a long white brocade wedding gown.

The couple honeymooned for eight days in Toulouse and Paris, France, as guests of the French government.  The groom's parents had honeymooned in Toulouse 44 years earlier.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #29

Couple: Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Date of Wedding:  June 18, 1953

Place: Lawn of the Bride's Parents' home in Marion, AL

Officiant: Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. (groom's father)

Fun facts: 

The couple met while both were in graduate school in Boston and married one year and four moths after their initial meeting.

The bride's first impression of her groom was not a positive one.  She thought he looked like a boy rather than a man.  Martin normally wore a mustache to look older, but had shaved it off because he was pledging Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity

Martin's father did not initially think that Coretta was the best partner for his son. After mentioning the intelligent women from Atlanta who came from good families, Coretta retorted, "I have something to offer too."

The groom did not meet the bride's parents until days before the wedding.

The bride wore a pastel blue, waltz-length dress.

The bride had the traditional language about obeying her husband deleted from the marriage vows.

The couple spent their honeymoon in a funeral parlor that doubled as the home of a friend (who worked as an undertaker) since there were no nearby hotels open to African Americans because of segregation.  

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #28

Couple: Taineisha Sledge and Dorian Bolden

Date of Wedding:  August 18, 2007

Place: Pine Lake Pavilion (Mebane, NC)

Officiant: Pastor Nate Davis

Fun facts: 

The couple met at the information desk in the student union during the first day of the bride's freshman orientation at Duke University.  The groom was working at the information desk.

The couple got engaged in the frame of the first house that they purchased.

At their wedding, the couple danced to Stevie Wonder's "You and I" for their first dance and to Luther Vandross's "Here and Now' for their last dance.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #27

Couple: Ronda Taylor and Kelvin Bullock

Date of Wedding:  October 1, 2005

Place: White Rock Baptist Church (Durham, NC)

Officiant: Rev. Dr. Reginald Van Stephens

Fun facts: 

The couple met as rising high school seniors at UNC's Project Uplift.

The bride and groom were best friends throughout college and decided to start dating at the end of the fall semester of their senior year

The couple taught together at Hillside High School in Durham.

The couple had their wedding reception at a Durham historic sit, NC Mutual Life

The man and woman who caught the bouquet and garter at their wedding married each other in 2017.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #26

Couple: Sharon Celecia Lassiter and Isaac Odell Vinson

Date of Wedding:  September 10, 1983

Place: Johnston Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church (Clayton, NC)

Officiant: Rev. Luther Coppedge

Fun facts: 

The couple met during the summer of 1977.  The future bride was a rising freshman and the future groom was a rising senior.

The groom took the bride to her junior and senior proms.

Sisters of the bride and groom were in the wedding party.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #25

Couple: Dr. E. Renee Sanders and Dr. Bill Lawson

Date of Wedding:  July 4, 1997

Place: Tupper Memorial Baptist Church (Raleigh, NC)

Officiant: Reverend Victor Davis

Fun facts: 

The couple attended a wedding of mutual friends about 20 years before they began dating.

North Carolina’s 9th poet laureate introduced the groom to the bride.  

Guests at the couple's private ceremony were entertained by a harpist.

The couple enjoys traveling domestically and internationally.  Since marrying, they have visited over 15 countries together.

The bride is a life member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and the groom is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #24

Couple: Mary Louise Terrell and Dr. Leon Algernon Tancil

Date of Wedding:  June 27, 1923

Place: Freedmen’s Hospital (Washington, D.C.)

Officiant: Reverend D. R. River

Fun facts: 

The bride was a teacher in the Washington, D.C. public schools. 

The couple married at Freedmen’s Hospital so that the bride’s sick father, Judge Robert Terrell, could witness the ceremony.

The couple had a wedding reception immediately following their ceremony at the home of the bride’s parents.

The bride was the adopted daughter and biological niece of Mary Church Terrell.

The couple received congratulatory messages about their nuptials from leading black Americans including W.E.B. DuBois.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #23

Couple: Tara Williams and Damien Forsythe

Date of Wedding:  August 25, 2012

Place: The Hall and Garden at Landmark (Garner, NC)

Officiant: Reverend Jonathan Ford

Fun facts: 

The bride and groom met in 1997 at a track meet at Clayton High School.  The groom was a senior at North Johnston High School and the bride was a freshman at Smithfield-Selma Senior High School.

The groom was supportive of everything the bride wanted for their wedding although he thought some things were unnecessary.  He came to appreciate all of the small details the bride had thought of to make their day extra special and to this day, he still tells her how much he enjoyed their wedding.

The couple have three children: two boys and one girl.

The bride and groom are HBCU rivals. The groom is a NC A&T Aggie and the bride is a NC Central Eagle.

The couple is competitive in air hockey.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #22

Couple: Sojourner Green and Derek McKnight

Date of Wedding: June 18, 2005

Place: Union Hill A.M.E. Church (Wilson's Mills NC

Officiants:  Reverend V.I. Tyrell and Reverend Rena McKnight (groom's mother)

Fun Facts:

The bride and groom met in the 9th grade after a Kenansville Eastern Missionary Baptist Association (KEMBA) Youth Missionary event. The groom was supposed to play for the service but,  declined.  Had he played that day,  the bride and groom may have never met.

While the couple met in the 9th grade, they did not date until their second year of college, at North Carolina Central University. 

The bride is 8 days older than the groom.

The date of the wedding is 4 days after the bride's Birthday and 4 day's before the groom's Birthday. 

The bride's dress was custom made by Alice Blake who is a Seamstress and Cutter/fitter for Screen Gems Studios.

Many people think that the bride and groom's two children are twins; however, they are 11 months apart.