Happily Ever After - African American weddings - Brief Article

Ebony, Feb, 2000 by Laura Randolph Lancaster

EVERY woman has her own vision of the perfect wedding day. While the goal of this once-in-a-lifetime event is always the same--to pledge your life to the person you love not only for who he is, but for who you are when you are with him--the details of what each woman wants her Big Day to look like are as different as fingerprints.

There are women who like white and women who like ivory, women who like sit-down dinners and women who like buffets, women who like hats and women who like veils, women who like goo-gobs of guests and women who swear that eloping is the only way to say "I do" without losing a substantial part of your sanity, not to mention your savings.

Some women, like best-selling author Terry McMillan, want a simple, uncomplicated ceremony that's completely free of fuss. (Barefoot and wearing a silk-chiffon slip dress under a simple wrap, the author wed her boyfriend, college student Jonathan Plummer, in a no-frills sunset ceremony on a Hawaiian beach.)

Some women, like ex-Baywatch star Traci Bingham, want a fancy, over-the-top ceremony that pulls out all the stops. (Though Traci wed her fiance, musician Robb Vallier, in his hometown of Ames, Iowa, everything about this Sister's Big Day screamed Hollywood: The dress--a white satin Escada gown featuring a tulle embroidered skirt and a 10-foot train. The headpiece--a $500,000 diamond tiara. The ring--a 5.5 carat, white-gold band encrusted with more than two dozen diamonds. The cake--a five-tier oval number topped by a scale model of the swing on which Vallier proposed.)

As entertaining as I found reading about the details of Traci's wedding day (Did I mention her $85,000 diamond earrings, 10 bridesmaids and a 3.5 carat diamond solitaire engagement ring?), I did not envy her them. In fact, not a single one of them made my wish list when I dreamed of my own.

That's because, from the time I was a teenager, there was only one thing I really, really wanted on my wedding day. Unfortunately, when I became an all-grown-up Black woman, it was the one thing I understood I could never have. What I wanted more than anything--more than a perfect gown or perfect weather or the perfect place--was a perfect promise. A guarantee-absolute, incontrovertible, unassailable--that the love I'd found would be passionate and permanent and that what my husband-to-be and I felt for each other on the day we said "I do" would never wane or waiver.

Of course, like most Black women north of 30, I know no such guarantee exists. I know that, in our 50 percent-divorce-rate culture, marriage these days is as much about throwing the dice as it is about throwing the rice. Which is why I was never in a hurry to tie the knot.

So how do I explain why, several weeks ago, I did just that? At a time when the probability that Black couples will divorce within 15 years is 50/50 and the likelihood that African-Americans will divorce in their lifetime is even higher, there were 100 reasons to walk away. There was one, however, that wouldn't let me.

When I think about the enormity of what I've done, I know I didn't just jump the broom; I made a leap of faith. When my beloved proposed to me under the stars at midnight on a moonlit Caribbean beach, like generations of Black women before me, I felt an ancient knowledge, a profound faith. I felt the secret of our ancestors' survival. What Black folks have always known way down deep, in the marrow of our bones--that whatever the odds, love can overcome them. That its power is total and transcendent. That it is the force that always has, and always will, transform and sustain us.

Here's the thing about love, especially the forever kind: You can't adequately explain the feeling with words because, even the right ones, the perfect ones, were not made to convey this deepest, strongest, most elemental emotion of the heart. And so, when it happens to you, as it did to me, you do the only thing you can do. You surrender to it.

As profound as it is, even this deepest of feelings is not, I know, a guarantee of happily-ever-after. But, I'm hoping that, like my mother and her mother and all the Black mothers forever back through time, it is the only one I'll ever need.

Looking at my wedding-day video, I see there were a few Hollywood moments which, in addition to replaying over and over, I am hoping will give destiny a little nudge in the right direction. Patti LaBelle bringing God into the room and our guests to tears with her soul-searing, heart-stopping rendition of the "Lord's Prayer," Halle Berry throwing me a kiss before catching the bouquet. Eric Benet and Terry Dexter harmonizing like angels as they sang Benet's beautiful ballad, "Spend My Life With You" while my husband and I laugh and cry and waltz our way through the first dance.

Throughout the night, there were other unforgettable moments, but the one that remains etched in my heart happened long after the festivities ended and the last guests had gone home. Yes, I am sure a woman never forgets the first toast her husband makes to her when only she is there to hear it, but then I'll never have to try to remember it. It is, I know, as close to a guarantee as any bride will ever get.