Met

We met downtown Oakland during our respective lunch breaks.  We had our first date the next Tuesday and our second date on Saturday.  By the time he dropped me off at home we were an item and have been together ever since.

Engaged

By the time a year was upon us, we had met each other’s family, traveled and made it through a major health scare.  We knew we’d found our second chance at love so we took it.

Wedding Planning (Aleta)

Our original wedding date was scheduled for August 25, 2018 making a nice trifecta.  Since it was both our second marriages I struggled with the size of the wedding, where to have it, etc.  Life happened and the date came and went.  I hadn’t given up but I just wasn’t in a rush.

Fast forward to December 2018.  I’d gone to Paris for the Christmas season.  Jimmy’s job wouldn’t let him off and everyone I asked to accompany me said no, so I went alone.  I had the most fabulous time and when I returned home, it hit me that I loved my life and wanted it to evolve from here.

I woke Jimmy up and told him we were getting married on January 1st.  I called my pastor, Dr R. Mario Howell, and asked him if he was free.  He said yes and I started planning.

I had 9 days to make this special.  After the previous year deliberating on the size of event, the venue, guest list and all the other stuff that goes into wedding planning I was wore out.  I’d planned a big white wedding before with a 20 person wedding party and 7 pre-wedding events.  I wanted no parts of that again.  His family lives in Mississippi and my family lives in Los Angeles.  It was too short a notice for them to come and add to that that my mom wouldn’t have been able to make it as she was scheduled for surgery in January.  We decided on no guests.

My first order was getting a dress.  I knew I wanted floor length and silver. I was hoping I’d find it.  I parked in front of Macy’s on Christmas eve at 6:30 am waiting for them to open. I walked in and in one short hour had a silver sequin dress (from the clearance rack!) and sparkly heels to match.  I didn’t like sleeves on the dress so I headed to the fabric store and picked up some mesh fabric and sequin beads. I removed the originals and replaced them with new ones.  I hand beaded the new sleeves and I was ready to go.  Jimmy rented a tux with accessories to match my dress.

Over the next week, I visited a few store picked up a few decorating odds and ends.  I’m an unofficial event planner so I had most everything on hand already.  I rearranged the living room, decorated one wall to resemble a wedding chapel and one wall to resemble the wedding table.

On New Year’s Eve, we went picked up the groceries and I picked up the flowers the morning of the wedding.

On January 1, I spent the day cooking. I made his and my favorite dinner, crab stuffed deviled eggs, garlic crab, garlic shrimp, asparagus, and rice pilaf.  I also made his favorite cake, butter cake with chocolate icing for dessert.

I added the last minute touches, got dressed and we were set.

Married

There were 5 people present.  Us, our pastor and first lady and the professional photographer I hired.  The photographer got all the staged shots before they arrived at 8 pm.  Pastor Howell married us in a sweet and short 5 minute ceremony (see the video) and afterward the four of us had dinner and toasted with Sparkling Fuji Apple.

It was perfect.

As of this writing, it’s been 16 days and have never been happier.