- 2 days ago
The couple, who met in middle school, dish on their love story, the proposal, and the three events they held to honor their commitment.
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00:00Hi, I'm Dr. Noni. And I'm Deshawn. And this is our Essence Bridal Bliss story.
00:07When I met Deshawn for the first time, we were kids. We were in middle school. I remember
00:12our mutual friends telling both of us that we had a twin in the school. She was very
00:18intelligent. Top of the class. She had a lot going for her. We had this meetup at the lockers. I
00:24think he was a little bit nervous. We're definitely gorgeous. Out of my league.
00:27I thought he was very good looking at the time. We weren't really close in high school, right? But
00:34when we went off to college, we both went to different colleges. I went up to Harvard. And
00:39every time I would come back home, Deshawn and another mutual friend, they would be the two
00:44that would pull us all back together and just hang out. And that's when I started to learn
00:49more about you and vice versa. And there were two specific events that I think kind of got
00:53things rolling. The first was a surprise birthday party for our mutual friend David, right? We left
00:59the party for a good hour and a half, found ourselves in a little dining room and had a deep conversation
01:05about kids and relationships. I think that might have sparked something, but we didn't really know
01:09it at the time. At least I didn't. So then July 4th of that year rolled around. He invited me and my
01:15sister to a pool party. And Noni has always had a boyfriend or somebody, somebody courting her.
01:24And at this party, she was there along for sisters. So this gave me the opportunity to actually have
01:31a conversation with her, just one-on-one. We shook her by then. This brother ignored us.
01:36He played in the pool. So I was like, all right, it's time to go. So as we're leaving,
01:41he runs out from the pool, shirt off, looking very nice. I might say, if I might say it to myself.
01:47And he ran to his car. He got this birthday gift that he had bought when he and his mother were in
01:52New York, saw this book called Black Food, I think it was, and gifted this to me. And this is really the
01:57first time I felt, you know, seen in terms of just the two of us. And so I ended up inviting him
02:05over to my new home to help with landscaping. And I think there was a little bit of a spark.
02:11There was definitely a spark. For me, I was always interested.
02:13Well, there was always a spark.
02:14But I didn't know if she was interested in me. So these moments at the pool party,
02:19coming to her house, that gave me an opening to really have a conversation to see what her
02:25interest was in me. I remember I was sort of kind of dating around. I wasn't,
02:29I was at the point in my life where I wanted, you know, you want to settle,
02:34but you wanted to be with the right person.
02:36Look, I've always said I was pronouning since middle school. And finally,
02:41after so many years having everything together,
02:43I felt more accomplished and more prepared and more confident to approach her. So dating,
02:49I was just ready.
02:50I think this was the second or third time he'd come over to kind of help out.
02:53He was hanging photos and everything. And I remember my mom telling me that week, you know,
02:58like, what are you doing? And here's this, you know, sexy engineer, you know, you're kind of
03:03single. What's going on? What's the vibe? So from there on, I just remember I would be in his
03:10apartment and glance over at him and have this strange feeling in my gut. Like, this is your
03:15husband. It was sort of that way in where I knew before I was kind of ready to commit. But I think
03:20around September, October that year, we were kind of in there. I kind of moved in and kind of took
03:25off from there.
03:26Dating Noni, she already took all, like almost all the boxes on my list. So she had a lot going for
03:33her. When it was time for me to propose, I knew because Noni decided to stop fooling around with
03:39other people and become exclusive with me. And we tried to merge our lifestyles together.
03:44Talking about kids, which we did very early.
03:46So there was some encouragement, quite a bit of encouragement on her end for me to propose her.
03:51That's a very generous way of saying that.
03:55That would lead up to me just knowing or understanding that, yeah, this is my person.
04:00It's time for us to go to the next level. We were on a cruise for a sister's birthday,
04:05and we happened to stumble upon a ring show, a diamond ring show. So it was kind of
04:12premature, but I decided to go ahead and buy a ring. But I couldn't hide it in my bag,
04:18in my luggage, because Noni and I were sharing the same room. And she would know and see the
04:22expenses on our account that I had purchased a ring for our proposal. So instead, I passed the
04:28ring on to her sister, Kamara, and asked her to hold it and buy it for me. And I would pay her
04:33back after the trip and get it from her until it was time for me to propose to her.
04:37So everybody knew, except me.
04:41Deshawn proposed out of nowhere that we would take a detour and do a really cute dinner with
04:46my sisters, which it doesn't really happen often. So I don't know why I wasn't thinking there was
04:51something to this. But okay, so we went to the opera first, you know, sat through the fantastic
04:56presentation. And then we went to the restaurant afterwards. My sisters were there, we were dressed
05:01up, we looked cute. And I should have known something was odd, because both he and my middle
05:06sister kept disappearing from the table. And literally before the surprise proposal, I'm pretty
05:13sure I had said to him, you know, like, you don't need to wait to propose to me to make it perfect,
05:18like just get it done. And then I turn around and the waiter shows up with a wine glass and,
05:24you know, puts the wine glasses on the table. And everyone is weird and quiet. And I'm like,
05:30what's going on? It's not my birthday. But Deshawn goes, Noni, look at your glass. And I look at the
05:35glass. I'm like, what am I supposed to be looking at? And so he points to the bottom.
05:40And at the bottom of the, you know, the stem, there was a the ring, you know, was attached.
05:45And I was just, I don't know why I didn't expect it. But I had no idea, I think immediately was in
05:51tears. So he immediately got up, he walked around, he knelt down, and he had this cute kind of poetic
05:59spiel. I was in tears. And it was just so perfect, perfect people, perfect situations. My sisters
06:06were there. I think everybody in the room clapped. Like it was just, it was such a special occasion
06:13for us. We got engaged in April of 2023. We had a backyard ceremony, and we wore these outfits. And it
06:22was amazing. We had, you know, my sisters, my parents, his parents, and it was gorgeous. We took
06:28aspects of cultures from around the world. So from the Caribbean, Yoruba culture, Native American
06:34culture. That's when we really read our first set of vows. We had a commitment in front of our family
06:42and friends who held us to the promise. We did a sand ceremony. So that was amazing. To me, that was
06:48like, that was our wedding, even though it wasn't legal and official. Wedding planning was a test for us.
06:53And it was a good one. And we got through it. And we learned a lot about each other.
06:57But it definitely helped us kind of understand how we balance each other out. You know,
07:01I'm fast-paced and fire. He's water and slow-paced. And both of those are important.
07:06In August, we decided to do a quick courthouse wedding just because we were getting married in
07:12St. Lucia. And just for the sake of money, it made more sense to legally get married stateside.
07:18Going to St. Lucia was also a vacation for me. So it was a time for me to get away from all the
07:24madness of work, my involvement with church, and all the volunteer work that I do.
07:28We planned St. Lucia to be both the ceremony as well as our honeymoon at the same time.
07:35I picked St. Lucia because of my background in French studies. So we kind of did an all-for-one
07:41trip destination wedding. When we got there, we spent the first couple of days
07:45local. We spent time with the people and just, it was really a local honeymoon. We stayed at
07:50Airbnb's, had a great time. Then we transitioned to Sandals, the resort, which just made it really
07:57easy. Our on-the-ground team was fantastic. All people of color, they were amazing. We had our
08:04family fly in. There were 24 of us total, including the photographers we brought in from Atlanta.
08:09Um, and then, you know, they got to the resort, stayed a couple of days. We had a blast on the
08:15day of the wedding, quote unquote itself. Uh, we had an over the water chapel wedding. You'll have,
08:21the pictures are amazing and beautiful. Then we had a small little reception, um, at the resort
08:26afterwards. We did sunset pictures. And then I think it was the next day we had a catamaran with,
08:33we had everybody wear white. Uh, and we had just a lot of our friends and family kind of come out
08:38and chill on the boat. So it was just a great time. And then our last, uh, night we stayed at
08:43Jade mountain. Let me tell you, I mean, you're going to hear about our Atlanta reception. Our biggest
08:48thing was to walk away from this debt-free and we planned this to the T. And so we were able to do
08:54that. That's a big deal. Cause I do financial advising. So we got everything in, but St. Lucia was a
09:00dream come true. It was just so beautiful. One of the things we wanted was just to make it
09:05personable. So St. Lucia was about family and close, close friends. Then at the reception,
09:11um, we had our parents. So our mothers wrote little cute welcoming speeches that they both read.
09:19Um, it was my brother's birthday. So we did a cute little shout out and moment for him. My dad MC,
09:26that was an experience. Uh, your father did the prayer. So it was a nice little,
09:30we wanted to get everybody engaged and, um, walk into men's warehouse, found this beautiful purple.
09:36I was a little nervous about it, but purple suit that worked so well for the beach. Your folks showed
09:41up in gradations of purple. It was so perfect. I had two dresses picked out and the goal was just to get
09:49one. It was a gift from my sister, but the dress that I picked, I remember doing the alterations and
09:56everything. And I was just like, this is not the one, like I'm going to have to sell this. I really,
10:02really, really want that Disney look, which was a surprise for my family because that is not who I am
10:08at all. But for this wedding in St. Lucia, it was just something about that cute, beautiful, you know,
10:14fluffy bottom. So I had found the perfect dress, bought the wrong one, went back and bought the
10:18right dress. And that's the dress that I wore in St. Lucia. Seeing Nody come down the aisle and to the
10:24altar was a magical moment. At that point, I was very pleased, impressed. Yes, impressed because
10:32it had been a lot to come together, getting all the arrangements in order. Yeah, your smile
10:38smile was priceless. You'll see his smile in the pictures, priceless. Okay, so the Atlanta reception,
10:45oh my goodness, that was once in a lifetime kind of thing. And we had a one month to pull this
10:52together. 270 people showed up. I took the week off before to cook all of the rice. I performed piano.
11:00Okay, it was a lot of work. My vision was for this to be really grand and beautiful
11:05and give us an opportunity to celebrate each other. In addition to us doing a choreographed,
11:11intense dance that we practiced for, for at least two months, I also was really, really big on bringing
11:17in a white piano and returning back to my classical piano roots. Piano kind of was my life and I hadn't
11:24played literally in over a decade. And I thought, what an amazing opportunity to kind of share my love for
11:31you put something together was a medley of sorts that had a couple of classical pieces. And then
11:39mixed in between were a couple of R&B piano pieces. So the way we did this, we brought in a white piano.
11:46We had my sister introduce us after our St. Lucia video kind of, you know, was presented to the group.
11:54She introduced us, we came in, and then he walked me to the piano. And, and then I started playing this piece.
12:01I would start off with the class, started off with the classical piece. And to the surprise of everyone
12:06in the audience, my sister, my youngest sister, who's a singer songwriter, her name is Dara Carter.
12:11She was planted in the back of the room with a mic. And as soon as I transitioned to the second R&B piece,
12:17I think the first was Stevie Wonder, Knocks Me Off My Feet. She broke out in song as I was playing.
12:23And folks had no idea. She would walk through the crowd, sing, engage with the crowd. And then she'd
12:30plant herself somewhere else. I shift to the next classical piece. And then I think we did Whitney
12:37Houston and she broke out in song again. It was amazing. It was probably one of the best moments
12:42of my life, I have to say. It was a formal occasion. That's what we wanted to be, that everybody enjoyed.
12:48And we will forever talk about. My advice to the couples preparing for the wedding is take your time
12:54in the planning and working with one another as a team. Having maybe like a therapist or someone to
13:01kind of guide you as you're making this transition. We had someone who we spoke to every time we hit a
13:09rock. But to have someone consistent there that you're talking to and just helping guide you through
13:15conflict. Conflict is important, I think. But it's all about how you approach it. I had a friend tell
13:21me maybe two months in, you have to have fun with this because you're going to look back and you know,
13:27why stress out? And that was a really pivotal moment for me to just learn to relax and just enjoy the
13:32process. What's next for us? What's next for us is, oh, maybe a baby in the way.
13:40Yes, we are family planning as well. That's important to us and just being patient through
13:44that process and vocal about what that process looks like. Becoming more in tune with each other's
13:51needs and learning how to support each other more. Because I want to do big things in the world,
13:57you're doing big things in the world. And I want us to kind of build a life that supports and sustains
14:04who we are as individuals. And we're getting better at it. And it's something I want to continue to
14:09evolve with, you know, as we move towards your 10 and 20 and 30 and 50 together.
14:19versus the 10 and 50.
14:20I've never been talking to you about 20 and 20.
14:21I've never done that since.
14:22Absolutely.
14:23To me I've never done that before.
14:24That's all.
14:24I've never done that before.
14:25So, shi'a.
14:26I know I have to do that before.
14:27And I don't know.
14:27I'm just because you're going to get better in my mind.
14:29As long as I want.
14:30As long as I want to deal with me here, I'm just not to do that before.
14:31You've got to get better.
14:32I can't have to be happy, but I want to be happy today.
14:34I have to put a lot of accountability in this facility.
14:46You've got to be happy, but I can't have to be happy.
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