The best weddings of the last 50 years

Ebony, June, 1995 by Lynn Norment

FEW occasions arouse such warm sentiments and set hearts aflutter the way a beautiful wedding does. A lovely bride, a handsome bridegroom, the glorious flowers, the gorgeous gown, the festive ambience-all combine to evoke smiles, well-wishes, curiosity, dreams and sometimes even envy.

Over the past 50 years, EBONY and Johnson Publishing Company have covered some of the most fabulous nuptials in America. One of the first major weddings we photographed was that of legendary crooner Nat King Cole, who married singer Maria Ellington on Easter Sunday in 1948. The ceremony was performed by another legend, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and witnessed by 3,000 guests. Cole wrote in EBONY that the ceremony "had my knees knocking ... the excitement was too much."

Three years earlier, Powell himself had married jazz pianist Hazel Scott and hosted a

reception at Cafe Society Uptown in New York. One of the most opulent weddings of the 50s was for the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred E. Thomas, who entertained guests on their private island on the Detroit River. Among the most sensational weddings in recent years were those of superstars Whitney Houston and Eddie Murphy. In July of 1992, Houston, radiant in a form-fitting Lyon lace gown with a four-foot train, exchanged wedding vows with Bobby Brown in the garden gazebo of her New Jersey estate. In March of 1993, Murphy married model Nicole Mitchell-who was adorned in a breathtaking, low-cut off-the-shoulder, silk and satin gown-in a fabulous affair at The Plaza Hotel.

Among the best weddings of the last 50 years, excluding, of course, your wedding and those of your children and friends, were the weddings featured on the following pages.

Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown pose for formal portrait with members of their wedding party. At left, the bride is shown in her form-fitting beaded Lyon lace gown with four-foot train and beaded headpiece with floor-length beaded tulle just before the start of the ceremony in the garden gazebo of her New Jersey estate. Ebony published exclusive photographs of the 1992 wedding.

Eddie Murphy and lovely bride Nicole Mitchell are shown at The Plaza Hotel in New York with their wedding party. At right, the bride strikes an alluring pose in her white silk and satin gown with rosettes and French Alenpon lace. The dress featured a 12-foot-long cathedral train and cathedral tulle veil that was edged in Belgian embroidery and decorated with iridescent Austrian crystals and pearls. Ebony provided exclusive coverage of the 1993 wedding.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the renowned New York congressman and minister, married jazz pianist Hazel Scott at a church in Stamford, Conn., on August 1, 1945. On his way to the church, Powell had a flat tire and had to be rescued by a parkway toll attendant. He arrived at the ceremony 28 minutes late. Afterwards, he and his bride rushed back to New York City where a crowd of thousands awaited them at a reception at Cafe Society Uptown, a club where Scott regularly performed. He was 36 years old at the time, and she 25.

The wedding of Nat King Cole and Maria Ellington on Easter Sunday in 1948 was billed as the "biggest Harlem wedding of the last 25 ears," and cost a whopping $ 7,000. The ceremony took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church before 3,000 guests with Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. officiating. At the reception the bride fed the groom the traditional piece of wedding cake. Outside the church a crowd gathered to greet the newlyweds. The couple honeymooned in Mexico City and Acapulco, where they shopped, went boating, watched a bull fight and spent time on the beach.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exchanged wedding vows with Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953, during a fashionable garden wedding at the home of her parents in Alabama. The Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. officiated. The couple met in February of 1952, while she was a student at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music and he was finishing his doctoral studies at Boston University. A mutual friend had suggested that they meet, and within a year Dr. King proposed. He was 24 years old at the time of the marriage. "The more I saw of him, the more I liked him," Coretta King said of their courtship.

Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP legal counsel who later was appointed the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice, married Cecelie Suyat in 1956 in a quiet ceremony at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in New York. Guests attending the wedding and reception were former UN delegate Charles Mahoney and the bridegroom's mother, Norma Marshall. In bottom photo, the newlyweds pose with the Rev. Shelton Hale Bishop, who performed the ceremony, maid of honor Marilyn Mayekawa, best man George Hilton, and NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins. The couple, who had met eight years earlier when she was hired as a secretary at the NAACP, honeymooned in the Virgin Islands, Haiti and Jamaica.

The wedding of Marion Patricia Stubbs and Harold Steadman Fleming Jr. in the summer of 1958 was one of the most lavish galas in Black America during that era. The bride's mother and stepfather, Dr. and Mrs. Alfred E. Thomas (at left with the newlyweds as they cut their five-tiered wedding cake.), spared no expense to make their daughter's wedding day quite memorable. The reception was held on Marion Island, the family's seven-acre estate in Canada near Detroit. Guests dined at 70 pink-and-blue decorated tables set on The Point with a magnificent view of the Detroit River. Among the delicacies served were roast prime ribs of beef au jus, jumbo shrimp, lobster Newburg with sherry, risotto, whole salmon in aspic Bellevue, and petite ice cream moulds a la Francaise. As the champagne flowed freely. ensemble of Detroit's Symphony Orchestra played during the afternoon, and a jazz combo entertained that evening.