Today in wedding history one of the world’s most celebrated authors married his very own Bond Girl. IanFleming, the mastermind behind the James Bond stories as well as such classics as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,met Ann Charteris in 1939. However the couple didn’t marry until 1952, during a small ceremony in Jaimaca.
It was his first marriage and her third. Though their love was a turbulent one, they had one son and it has been said that she influenced many of his stories and characters.
This Sunday, March 28th 2010 is Black Marriage Day. After learning about this new Day and the organization behind it, The Wedded Bliss Foundation, we had to talk with their Executive Director, Nisa Islam Muhammad.
Nisa formed The Wedded Bliss Foundation in 2001 and not only serves as Executive Director, but is also a senior staff writer for The Final Call Newspaper and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.Read below to find out how Nisa has started a Marriage Revolution!
PROPOSAL:What inspired you to create the Wedded Bliss Foundation?
NM: I had a failed marriage and got tired of hearing all of the negative things being said about marriage in the Black community. I wanted to do something to change the reality. Wasn’t really sure if I could. That was in 2001. I’m always shocked at how well the notion of improving marriage in the Black community has caught on and the countless people who want to get involved and make change.
PROPOSAL: Black Marriage Day is this Sunday (March 28th ) For our readers who don’t know about this important day of awareness, tell us a little bit about what this day means to you and your community ?
NM: It’s an opportunity to do something positive to celebrate the joy many couples find in marriage. It’s a chance to create cultural change to think positively about marriage in our community rather than the negatives we usually hear about our marriages such as another one bites the dust or it just didn’t happen. It’s about changing the hearts and minds of people to reconsider marriage.
PROPOSAL: Is there any particular reason you chose March 28th to be Black Marriage Day?
NM: It’s a different date each year but always the fourth Sunday in March unless that day is Easter.
PROPOSAL: What were some of your biggest challenges that you have faced in bringing this organization to life and how did you overcome them?
NM: People asked me why I was doing this since I was single at the time. I was very intentional in my goals and would not let the naysayers get in my way. I knew this was a good thing to do and was affirmed every step of the way. The more couples and singles I talked to the more I knew this work was needed and could be inspirational. I knew that it could make a difference in the lives of people who were looking for hope and restoration.
PROPOSAL: Where can our readers find your organization’s website?
PROPOSAL: What activities do you have planned for Black Marriage Day 2010?
NM: We are partnering with Tyler Media to debut the new film You Saved Me in 25 cities around the country. We are also partnering with Allied Media the marketing company for Tyler Perry’s new film Why Did I Get Married Too to sponsor vow renewal events in five cities around the country. Also, communities and organizations large and small will have very unique events to celebrate Black Marriage Day.
PROPOSAL: What can our readers do in their communities to honor Black Marriage Day?
NM: They can go to www.blackmarriageday and download resources to conduct a Black Marriage Day event in their community. We have flyers, brochures, fact sheets and lots more to help people be successful in their activities.
PROPOSAL:Can you tell us about the Marriage Hall of Fame? What qualifies a couple for receiving this honor?
NM: The Black Marriage Day Hall of Fame is a great activity communities can implement. They induct incredible couples into their own Hall of Fame. It’s a wonderful event that recognizes the joy and pain of marriage and the couples that stand the test of time. Readers can get more information about this at www.blackmarriageday.com
PROPOSAL:What classes does the Wedded Bliss Foundation teach and how do they benefit couples?
NM: We offer classes using the curriculum Basic Training for Couples written by myself and Dr. Rozario Slack. It’s eight sessions toward a better marriage. It helps couples increase their awareness of the benefits of marriage, improves their communication, teaches how to manage conflict and deepens their commitment toward marital stability.
PROPOSAL: Can you tell our readers what You Saved Me is, and what is your involvement in the film?
NM: You Saved Me is a candid look into the lives of five couples that share how their marriages saved them. Most people don’t think of their marriage or marriage in general as having “saving powers” but these couples go beyond the obvious and dig deep to give us the real deal of the benefits of marriage. It’s a great production by a couple Ronnie and Lamar Tyler who also blog for EssenceMagazine.com and host a site called www.blackandmarriedwithchildren.com. It will debut all across the country for Black Marriage Day.
PROPOSAL:Is there anything else you would like to add about your organization that we can include in this article?
NM: Wedded Bliss can be yours and we can show you how. We offer classes for the DC Metro area and travel around the country bringing our successful program to those in need. Call us. We have a program for you.
So last week was St. Patrick’s Day and I was invited to a Potluck. When my Boyfriend asked what we wanted to take I quickly blurted out Irish Soda Bread! This must be my specialty, you ask? No. Not at all. I’ve actually never made the bread by myself, but I’m Irish so how hard can it be?
Truthfully, I am Irish. In fact, when I was in 3rd grade we had an International Fair. All of the kids in my class had to give a presentation on their heritage and mine included serving traditional Irish Soda bread (beautifully baked my me & my Mom)!
So it had been quite a long time since I even assisted someone in making this but I went after it anyway! This delicious bread is surprisingly simple to make! It only requires a handful of ingredients and it only took about 20 minutes of prep time. I decided to use Martha Stewart’s recipe which you can read below:
Irish Soda Bread (makes 1 loaf)
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
2 cups golden or dark raisins
1 1/2 scant cups buttermilk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon heavy cream
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and caraway seeds until well combined.
Using a pastry cutter or two knives in scissor fashion, cut in butter until the mixture feels like coarse meal. Stir in raisins until evenly distributed.
In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg, and baking soda until well combined. Pour buttermilk mixture into the flour-and-butter mixture all at once, and stir with a fork until all the liquid is absorbed and the mixture begins to hold together. It should resemble a rough biscuit dough. Using your hands, press the dough into a round, dome-shaped loaf about 8 inches in diameter. Lift the loaf from the bowl, and transfer it to the prepared baking sheet.
In a small bowl, mix the egg yolk and cream together. With a pastry brush, brush the egg wash over the loaf. With a sharp knife or razor, incise a cross, about 1/2 inch deep, into the top of the loaf. Transfer to the oven. Bake, rotating halfway through, until it is deep golden brown and a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center, about 70 minutes. Remove from oven, and transfer bread from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool.
** The caraway seeds are optional. They have a black licorice taste to them, which I don’t like, so you can leave it out if desired…the bread will still bake up yummy!
*** A scant cup is a cup that just barely measures a cup; it’s packed lightly.
So all in all this was a great recipe! The bread baked great and it was very simple. I encourage you all to bake this up because it is fun and fairly quick (if you don’t count oven time). And.. this would be fun for kids as it is hands on and a little messy!
It was on this day in 1985 that famous supermodel Christie Brinkley and musician Billy Joel walked down the aisle in possibly one of the more romantic places one ever could get married – on a yacht. Specifically, one sailing down the Hudson River.
The upper-class girl and the working-class boy first met in 1983 on the Island of St. Barts in the Caribbean. Brinkley’s long-term boyfriend, racer Olivier Chandon de Brailles, had recently died in a race car crash and, though they had not dated for a few months, she was still heartbroken over it. Joel provided comfort and solace in her time of need.
Now Brinkley’s dad, Don, was walking his daughter down the aisle, right before Joel and Brinkley would share a passionate pre-I do kiss. She wore a Norma Kamali high-necked white satin gown overlaid with ivory lace and gold tulle, accessorized with the 50 long-stemmed white roses she carried in her hands. The wedding itself included 175 guests, including Paul Simon, Brian Setzer, and Isabella Rossellini, and lasted only seven minutes.
Not only was the boat a romantic place to get married–it was a great way to exchange vows without the paparazzi invading. However, it didn’t stop them when the newlyweds finally reached the New York Harbor to head for their reception!
Gina writes:
Kyle and I were excited to celebrate our four year anniversary this past weekend in his hometown of Norwalk, Ohio. On Saturday morning he led me to the garage and told me to read the note on the front seat and to “Have a great day!”
I looked in my car and there was a GPS and a rose with a note around it which told me I was going to have a scavenger hunt for the day and to follow the destinations in the GPS. Excitedly, I followed the directions to the first location: A spa. I was instructed to open the next hidden note which said to enjoy myself and take pictures of everything. I spent the whole morning at the spa getting a massage, pedicure, manicure, and hair cut.
After getting beautified, I was instructed by note to go to his brother’s house to get dressed and ready in a dress he bought me. I then was told to go to the final destination: His house.
All dressed up, I walked into his sunroom and he was in a matching suit standing under an eight-foot arch he had constructed. He got down on one knee and proposed, only after his wiener dog Regi ran in with painted toe nails, a black flowered bandana, and my ring tied around her neck. I said “Yes!”
2. Ariel Baruch & John Laing
Location: On top of Mt. Sugarloaf in Sunderland, MA
Date: Saturday Oct. 17, 2009
John & Ari
Ariel writes: It is widely accepted that one of the most breath-taking parts of Fall in New England is experiencing peak foliage. John and I had planned on driving through the Valley, camera in hand, to capture pictures of the changing leaves, something neither of them was accustomed to growing up in Florida.
After more than an hour of traveling (and no good pictures to show), we made their way to the top of Mount Sugarloaf, a mountain looking over the Valley in Sunderland, MA. It was a brisk Fall morning, one of the first truly cold days of the season, so there were only a few other people at the top. The view was incredible — I was busy snapping pictures when John directed her towards a patch in a field below. “What’s that?” he had asked, pointing at the field. After a few minutes of staring at the field, then at John, then back at the field, I finally understood what was happening.
With the assistance of a pumpkin patch, John proposed. Using roughly 1,000 pumpkins, the message “Ari, please marry me!” was laid out before me.
3. Karen Hofreiter & Jeff Radjavitch
Location: Autoire, France
Date: July 12, 2009
Jeff & Karen
Karen writes: Ours was not a romantic introduction. When we met, I was a stranger sitting in his kitchen at 3am (invited by a mutual friend), my brain tequila-soaked, shoveling down mounds of guacamole. Regardless, he found me intriguing, and soon we were dating. Two summers later, on a sweltering 95 degree day outside a Medieval village in France, we were on an arduous hike up a steep limestone cliff (and cursing our ambitiousness all the way). But it was worth it–the view at the summit was breathtaking. Video camera in hand, I panned the landscape, making silly chatter. Behind me, I heard him say, “Hey, I have a question to ask you.” I swung the camera around, lens focused on him. It was then I saw something glittering brilliantly in the mid day sun. “You wanna get married?”
In shock, I drop the camera–still rolling–getting an up close view of my sweaty belly button, and all that can be heard is my voice saying, “Are you serious?” I repeated that phrase about 20 times, completely forgetting to say “yes” until several minutes later. In all my sweaty, greasy, baseball-cap clad glory, he slipped the ring on my finger.
Maybe I wasn’t in a sexy dress standing on top of the Eiffel Tower, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Now that you’ve read their stories, it’s time to vote for your favorite.
Cast your vote below. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow and vote. The results will be posted on Friday!
Yes, I get it. You’re too unique and different for a white dress.
You want to scream, “Look at me. I hate traditions!”
I’m down with that, but don’t be desperate. It’s really easy to spot a woman who is trying way too hard to be different. Cough cough, Gwen Stefani. Her tie-dyed, pink mess-of-a-wedding-dress started the current colorful wedding dress trend. I’m grateful for that, because her faux pas made it possible for any woman to look better than at least one celebrity.
You don’t have to go too edgy or cheesy to add a little bit of pizzazz to your wedding gown. There are classy ways to be different that don’t involve going way over the top. We are talking some bad-ass looks that will make you feel like a true fashionista and not like a 13-year-old girl with green hair and dog collars around her neck.
With just a hint of color you can rule your walk down the aisle. Check out these looks!
Most people know her as Winnie Cooper, the unattainable girl next door on the 1990s show The Wonder Years. But Danica McKellar is also an author, a mathematician and as of a year ago today, a wife.
McKellar married composer Mike Verta after seven years of dating. They were engaged in August of 2008, when McKellar was in Chicago promoting her second book, Kiss My Math. The two spent a romantic evening at the Ritz Carlton where he proposed to her.
The couple were married at the St. James by the Sea Episcoplal Church in La Jolla, California. Among the 150 guests were her former Wonder Years castmates, Dan Lauria and Alley Mills.
Last week, McKellar and Verta announced that they are expecting their first child later this year.
Looks like they have a lot to celebrate today! Cheers!
March 21, 2003
LaDanian Tomlinson & LaTorsha Oakley
The Tomlinsons (LT2 as they are known to friends)
NFL Superstar LaDanian Tomlinson and his wife, LaTorsha, are celebrating their seventh anniversary today.
The couple met at Texas Christian University, where he was on an athletic scholarship and she was on an academic scholarship.
According to LaTorsha, she was tutoring a friend who said he knew someone who liked her and wanted her number. She told the friend that “a real man would come and ask himself.”
A few weeks later at a party, LaDainian got up the nerve and introduced himself. They’ve been together ever since.
In the football world, he is known to fans as LT. Since she has the same initials, their friends often refer to them as LT2.
How do they keep up the romance? With date nights! In an interview with an NBC reporter. LaTorsha said, “Monday night is the night we go out. It’s our night.”
Since today is Sunday, we hope they make an exception to that rule and go out and celebrate tonight!
It seems like the marriage bug bit John Lennon and Yoko Ono, because two days after fellow-Beatle Paul’s and new-wife Linda’s wedding ceremony, they decided they wanted to walk down the aisle too! It would have been Lennon’s second marriage, and Ono’s third.
On his way to visit his Aunt Mimi, Lennon asked his chauffeur Les Anthony to drive them to Southampton to ask if he and Yoko could get married at sea. After finding out it wasn’t possible to do this, he tried to arrange a small ceremony in Paris, France. Unluckily for them, this wasn’t possible either because it was too such of short notice.
Peter Brown suggested they marry in Gibraltar since it was a British protectorate and Lennon was a British citizen, and they married there on March 20, 1969. The wedding was only ten minutes long, and took place within the British Consulate.
After that, they rushed off to Amsterdam, where they could only do what they did best: promote peace. While the press was expecting to see some action in the Presidential Suite at the Hilton Hotel, what they found instead was the couple in bed and in their pajamas. It was there that they held their famous “Bed-In” and continued to have more in different cities, as well as several talks and interviews promoting peace.
All these events even inspired the famous song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”!
Congratulations to our newest Proposal of the Week winners: Gina Gonter & Kyle Bowers. Come back on Monday to see them try to defend their title against two new couples! Here’s their story:
Gina writes:
Kyle and I were excited to celebrate our four year anniversary this past weekend in his hometown of Norwalk, Ohio. On Saturday morning he led me to the garage and told me to read the note on the front seat and to “Have a great day!”
I looked in my car and there was a GPS and a rose with a note around it which told me I was going to have a scavenger hunt for the day and to follow the destinations in the GPS. Excitedly, I followed the directions to the first location: A spa. I was instructed to open the next hidden note which said to enjoy myself and take pictures of everything. I spent the whole morning at the spa getting a massage, pedicure, manicure, and hair cut.
After getting beautified, I was instructed by note to go to his brother’s house to get dressed and ready in a dress he bought me. I then was told to go to the final destination: His house.
All dressed up, I walked into his sunroom and he was in a matching suit standing under an eight-foot arch he had constructed. He got down on one knee and proposed, only after his wiener dog Regi ran in with painted toe nails, a black flowered bandana, and my ring tied around her neck. I said “Yes!”
