Something Old, Something New
I always thought I’d get married in a church. But when I got engaged to my now-wife, I knew we’d need to find an alternative.
All of my childhood fantasies about marriage involved a church. I was raised in a tongues-speaking, foot-stomping, choir-sanging, tambourine-playing Black church, where my grandparents—on both sides of my family—were pastors. I loved being a church girl—spending every Sunday in a wooden pew within the first five rows, the way my world revolved around the extra aunties and cousins I gained through this spiritual family. I envisioned that one day I’d walk up the large brown staircase of the main entrance, through the vestibule, and down the aisle toward my future husband. It’s where my mother and father were married more than three decades ago, and I always looked forward to kicking off my own happily ever after the same way.