Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #66

Couple: Natalie Watson and Reginald E. Bess

Date of Wedding:  September 30, 2017

Place: Thornes Chapel Missionary Baptist Church (Rocky Mount, NC)

Officiant: Pastor Richard L. Battle

Fun facts: 

The bride's best friend, Crystal, is the groom's cousin.  Although the groom and Crystal grew up together and the bride and Crystal have been friends since 1994, the couple did not connect until 2016.

After 10 months of dating, the groom proposed to the bride at a concert in Raleigh.  He got permission from security and proposed right in front of the stage, while Maxwell sang the bride's favorite song by him--This Woman's Work!

The bride and groom are expecting a baby in March 2019!

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #65

Couple: Deidre Pinnix and Danny Yancey

Date of Wedding:  June 4, 2005

Place: St. James Presbyterian Church (Greensboro, NC)

Officiant: Rev. James Isaac III

Fun facts: 

The couple met on Blackplanet.com in January 2003.  They were both seniors in college--the bride at UNC-Chapel Hill and the groom at North Carolina Central University.  The groom sent the bride an online message and she responded.

The couple began communicating on Instant Messenger but the groom distanced himself a bit when he thought the bride was in Charlotte rather than Chapel Hill since she used the words UNC-CH in an online chat and he mistakenly thought that meant UNC-Charlotte.  When the bride mentioned hanging out with friends on Franklin Street, the groom realized that a long distance relationship was not necessary.

When the couple finally spoke via phone they talked until 3 am on the first night and talked daily for about a week until they decided to meet in person.

Their first date was at Miami Subs on Franklin Street.

What drew the couple to one another was their shared love of music and their faith.  The groom attended NCCU as a Teaching Fellow music education major.  The bride was a music double major at UNC.

After dating for 2 years and being engaged for 1 year, the couple married.

The couple chose to have their wedding ceremony at 10 AM so that they were able to enjoy the entire day as a newly married couple instead of being exhausted after a late-afternoon or evening wedding.

The couple had their wedding reception at the Regency Room, an event venue in downtown Greensboro.  They were the first people to hold an event at the center.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #64

Couple: Star Jones and Ricardo Lugar

Date of Wedding:  March 25, 2018

Place: Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas Cruise Ship (Bahamas)

Officiant: Ship official

Fun facts: 

The wedding was held the day after the bride's birthday.

The bride wore a mermaid-style satin gown Dennis Basso gown with a halter neckline that tied into a bow.

The wedding had 150 guests, including Tina Knowles-Lawson and Phaedra Parks.

The couple began dating in 2016 and got engaged in 2017.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #63

Couple: LeToya Luckett and Tommicus Walker

Date of Wedding:  December 10, 2017

Place: Villa Antonia (Austin, TX)

Officiant: Pastor John Gray

Fun facts: 

A mutual friend introduced the couple.

The bride wore a custom Vera Wang gown and Christian Louboutin sandals.

The bride's best friend, Eudoxie Bridges, served as one of the matrons of honor.  She is also the wife of rapper Ludacris.

The singer Tank sang "At Last" as the bride walked down the aisle.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #62

Couple: Samaiyah Jones and Daniel Scott

Date of Wedding:  August 16, 2008

Place: St. James United Methodist Church (Kansas City, Mo)

Officiant: Congressman/Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II

Fun facts: 

The couple just celebrated 10 years of marriage in August 2018 and they have 3 beautiful boys.

The couple met by happenstance in 2006 at the bride's family's Thanksgiving meal.  She was supposed to spend the holiday elsewhere but her plans fell through.  The bride's cousin invited the groom to the family gathering because the groom's parents were out of town.

At the time that the couple met, the bride was living in Memphis and the groom was in the Army so their first date was not until the following Thanksgiving.  They went on an outing with the bride's cousins after the Thanksgiving meal.

The groom's father is the pastor of Bannister Road Bapist Church in Kansas City, MO.  The groom proposed to his bride during the church's 25th anniversary banquet.

The groom arranged for his family and the bride's family to be in attendance at the church banquet for the proposal.

The groom and his 5 brothers used to sing as a quintet with their mother as the accompanist.  During the church banquet, they pretended to sing a song with the groom as soloist.  They began to sing and the groom did a "Temptations" slide out, got down on one knee, and proposed.   The bride was completely surprised but she said yes!!!

Everything about the bride's "wedding look" was done by the women closest to her.  The bride's mom made her wedding dress.  The bride's mother-in-love made all of her  jewelry, and the bride's sister did her hair and makeup.  

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #61

Date of Wedding:  September 26, 2009

Place: St. Peter's Church of Christ (Smithfield, NC)

Officiant: Pastor Patrick Jackson

Fun facts:

The bride and groom met while both were in college at North Carolina State University.  They had a chemistry class together and became best friends.  They remain best friends today!

As a way to stay on a a tight budget, none of the flowers used in the wedding were real.  Guests did not notice the difference.

The bride, the mother-of-the-bride, and several bridesmaids made the bouquets used in the ceremony.

Wedding guests enjoyed a lavish reception at Johnston Community College immediately after the ceremony.

Two of the bride and groom's children were in the wedding.  Kendall was 6 and Caden was 22 months old.

The couple accidentally left one of their baby son's shoes at home on the day of the wedding. Thus, the son was wearing a tuxedo and his everyday brown Stride Rite shoes.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #60

Couple: Sheryl Lee Ralph and Vincent James Hughes

Date of Wedding:  July 30, 2005

Place: First African Methodist Episcopal Church (Los Angeles, CA)

Officiant: Rev. Kenneth Flowers

Fun facts:

The couple met on a blind date arranged by a mutual friend.

The bride arrived at her wedding one hour late!

The bride wore a Tadashi-designed off-the-shoulder champagne-colored silk charmeuse gown, with a fitted and ruched bodice with Swarovski crystal stamps and a seven-foot mermaid train.  She also wore a $16,000 diamond and pearl tiara.

The bride's father escorted her to her son who then walked his mother the rest of the way down the aisle.

The star-studded wedding party included Jenifer Lewis, Niecy Nash, Victoria Rowell, Patti LaBelle, and Loretta Devine as bridesmaids.

The wedding ceremony lasted a little more than 1 hour.  Afterwards, the 350+ guests headed to the Bunker Hill City Club in downtown Los Angeles for the reception that featured a Jamaican buffet.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #59

Couple: Shirley Graham and W.E.B. Du Bois

Date of Wedding:  February 14, 1951*/February 27, 1951

Place: 17319 113th Steeet (St. Albans, Long Island, NY)

Officiant: Rev. Edward D. McGowan

Fun facts: 

The couple was supposed to marry on February 27 but the groom was indicted on February 9 and the bride wanted to be married before his arraignment.

They married secretly on February 14 with only a minister and two witnesses present.  They had a second wedding later with 150 family members and friends from all over the nation present.

Yolande Du Bois Williams, the groom's daughter, served as matron of honor.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #58

Couple: Renee Chenault and Chaka Fattah

Date of Wedding:  April 7, 2001

Place: Mount Carmel Baptist Church (Philadelphia, PA)

Officiant: Rev. Albert Campbell

Fun facts: 

The wedding party included the groom's daughter as the maid of honor, the groom's son as the best man, and the bride's daughter as the flower girl.

The bride is a television personality in Philadelphia.  She earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.

The groom was a United States congressman.

Ebony magazine named them as a power couple in 2007.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #57

Couple: Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown

Date of Wedding:  July 18, 1992

Place: The bride's estate in New Jersey

Officiant: Rev. Marvin Winans

Fun facts: 

The bride wore a custom-made ivory satin, sheer-sleeved dress that  allegedly cost $40,000.  The dress came with a floor-length silk veil and  matching bead and sequin cloche hat.

All 800 wedding guests were asked to wear purple.

The couple had a 6-tiered, 18-layered wedding cake.

The couple honeymooned in the Mediterranean on a 140-foot yacht.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #56

Couple: Erica Atkins and Warryn Campbell

Date of Wedding:  May 26, 2001

Place: Wilshire United Methodist Church (Los Angeles, CA)

Officiant: 

Fun facts: 

The bride wore a demure gown with fitted bodice.

400 guests attended the wedding, which was featured on the TLC show, A Wedding Story.

The wedding party included 12 bridesmaids, 12 groomsmen, 10 hostesses, 3 flower girls, 4 candle lighters, 3 extra ushers.

The brides's attendants included the her sister Tina and singer Brandy.  The groom's attendants included Heavy D.

Vanessa Bell Armstrong sang "If I Could" and BeBe Winans sang "Searching For Love" during the wedding ceremony.

The couple's ten-day honeymoon included a cruise from Puerto Rico to St. Croix, St. Thomas, and other islands in Aruba.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #55

Couple: Phylicia Ayers-Allen and Ahmad Rashad

Date of Wedding:  December 14, 1985

Place: Church of the Masters (New York, NY)

Officiant: Rev. Eugene S. Callender

Fun facts: 

The groom proposed to the bride on Thanksgiving Day 1985 during a broadcast of a New York Jets-Detroit Lions game.

The bride was walked down the aisle by her tv-husband, Bill Cosby.

The bride's sister, Debbie Allen, served as the maid of honor and the groom's friend and former teammate, OJ Simpson, served as best man.

Only 30 guests attended the private ceremony.  No other cast members of the The Cosby Show other than Bill Cosby were present at the wedding.

The couple divorced in 2001.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #54

Couple: Jada Pinkett and Will Smith

Date of Wedding: December 31, 1997

Place: Cloisters (medieval-style mansion in Baltimore, MD)

Officiant: Pastor Marvis May

Fun facts: 

The bride's dress, a long-sleeved, high-necked champagne-colored, velvet gown was designed by Badgley Mischka.  The groom wore a matching tuxedo also by Mischka.

The couple first met when the bride auditioned for a role on the groom's sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but they did not start dating until years later.

The bride did not get the role on the groom's sitcom because producers thought her 5' frame was too short for the 6'2 Smith.

The wedding was a secret to everyone including the guests.   No invitations were sent out.  Guest were put up in hotels and then shuttled to the wedding site by a fleet of 35 limos.

The bride and groom did not have bridesmaids or groomsmen.  No one gave the bride away.  She and her groom walked down the aisle together.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #53

Couple: Nicole Mitchell and Eddie Murphy

Date of Wedding:  March 18, 1993

Place: Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel (NYC)

Officiant: Rev. Calvin Butts

Fun facts: 

The bride walked down the aisle to "Don't Give Up on Love," which Murphy had performed on one of his earlier albums.

The wedding including 500 guests and cost $1.5 million.

Despite the large wedding budget, the ceremony only took 16 minutes.

All of the flowers used during the wedding were donated to a local hospital.

For the reception, the bride changed into a sequined white gown.

The couple honeymooned for one week at a private island in the Caribbean.

The couple divorced in 2006.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #52

Couple: Cari Tindall and Zachary Dillard

Date of Wedding:  July 19, 2014

Place: St. Matthew AME Zion (Rock Hill, SC)

Officiant: Rev. James Grubb

Fun facts: 

The couple met at Zaxby's in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where they both attended Claflin University.  The groom says that that bride hit on him, but she asserts that she was simply introducing herself.

The couple endured a long distance relationship while they were both in graduate school.  He was in Atlanta and she was in State College, PA.

The couple held their wedding at the bride's grandfather's church.

The couple performed a wedding reception entrance dance to Janelle Monae's "Electic Lady" and their wedding party created a bridge for them to walk under similar to what the wedding party did at bride's parents' wedding 25 years earlier.

The bride and groom took several trips during their courtship and a favorite was Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they visited an underground waterfall called Ruby Red Falls.

The bride and groom played tennis the morning before he proposed and he won.  She still hasn't forgotten that because they are both pretty competitive.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #51

Couple: Lindsey Stewart and Daniel Smith

Date of Wedding:  May 27, 2017

Place: Louis Armstrong Park (New Orleans, LA)

Officiant: Axelle Karera (close friend from graduate school)

Fun facts: 

The bride is from Louisiana and the groom is British.  They bonded over a shared love of jazz (the bride being from its birthplace and the groom being a jazz musician).

The couple was mindful of the complex history that brought a descendant of enslaved people (the bride) together with a person belonging to a people who participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade.  Thus their wedding took place in Louis Armstrong Park, which encloses "Congo Square," a place where slaves met on Sundays to engage in religious ceremony and celebratory rituals.  It is said that what went on in Congo Square birthed New Orleans jazz.

One of the pictures of the couple below is the two of them under what is called the Grandfather/mother Tree in Congo Square--one of the oldest oaks in the ring.  The umbrella pictured in the photo wasn't actually theirs.  A black woman tour guide saw them, stopped her tour, and started arranging them for the tour.  A complete stranger.  It was a *very* New Orleans moment.

In another photo below, the couple jumped the broom, an old slave ritual for weddings.  The couple wanted to find a rituaionl that allowed them to honor their grandmothers, with whom they have a special relationship.  They found a version of the ritual where the grandmothers swept before laying the broom down for the couple to jump.  In the right side of the photo, the bride and groom's grandmothers are holding hands.

In the third photo, the groom is signaling a brass band to start playing.  In New Orleans style, they couple hired a brass band to second-line after the wedding and for the reception, held in Basin St. Station (a train station that holds much historical significance for the development of jazz).

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #50

Couple: Michelle Obama and Barack Obama

Date of Wedding:  October 3, 1992

Place: Trinity United Church of Christ (Chicago, IL)

Officiant: Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Fun facts: 

The couple met in 1989 when the groom interned at the bride's law firm.

Their first date included Baskin-Robbins ice cream and Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing

The bride's brother walked her down the aisle and the groom's brother served as the best man.

The couple's first dance was to "You and I" by Stevie Wonder.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #49

Couple: Eleanor Brokenbery and Ulysses Robinson

Date of Wedding: April 17, 1949

Place: Home of bride's mother (Big Bethel, VA)

Officiant: Rev. J.D. Adkinson

Fun facts: 

The house was decorated with spring flowers, carnations, and potted plants.

The bride wore a navy blue dress with matching accessories.

The bride carried a bouquet of Gardenias.

The couple married on Easter Sunday.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #48

Couple: Nicole Eason and Devon Melvin

Date of Wedding:  May 3, 2005

Place:    Wake County Courthouse (Raleigh, NC)

Officiants: Wake County Justice of the Peace

Fun facts: 

The couple met in 2004.

One of the first things the groom told the bride was that she was going to be his wife. The bride did not take kindly to that declaration.  

The couple dated for 8 months.

One day they woke up and decided to get married.  They didn't have rings or family present.  Two strangers who were also getting married that day served as their witnesses and signed their marriage certificate.  The bride and groom returned the favor for that couple as well.  They testify that it does not require a traditional wedding to have a strong marriage.

The couple purchased their first home six months after marrying and they had the first child 1.5 years later.

The groom supported the bride while she completed nursing school.

The couple are the proud parents of two daughters, Genesis and Karma.

The bride and groom are convinced that they are soul mates because of their spiritual connections and ability to often communicate without words.

They are best friends and 90 percent of the time, if you see one of them, you will see both of them.

They couple loves to travel on cruises and are headed to Bermuda soon.

The couple continues to shower together after 13 years and the groom tucks the bride into bed every night.

Both partners are humanitarians; they try to quietly empower others financially, emotionally, etc.

The groom's nickname for his bride is Bunny.  The groom did not know that the nickname of the bride's father was Rabbit.

Celebrating Black Brides: Profile #47

Couple: Kenya Harris and Rev. Joseph Pridgen

Date of Wedding:  May 29, 2010

Place: Bethel AME Church (Greensboro, NC)

Officiants: Rev. Dr. Cardes H. Brown, Jr and Rev. Dr. Conrad K. Pridgen (groom's father)

Fun facts: 

The groom told the bride he wanted to marry her the day they met.  He said, "I am not looking for a girlfriend.  I am looking for a wife and I believe it's you."  The bride responded by telling him that was the worst pick up line she'd ever heard.  She proceeded to stop calling him shortly after that day.  The groom was persistent chasing the bride for 5 years before she agreed to date him seriously.

The couple dated for 3 months and then got engaged.

The couple married on the bride's birthday so they now call the day her "Birthversary."

One of the couple's favorite movies  is Disney's Phineas & Ferb and they've seen every episode twice!

The couple dates each other every day, but they don't spend money on every date.  They sometimes simply put their phones down and spend time together doing something that brings them joy.