A Jamaican Experience: The Wedding Day Scenes

By: Baron Stewart

Scene 1: The Wedding Plan That Shifted

Berkeley wanted a celebration—not just a wedding—a full-blown Arkansas-style family affair, with music, dancing, barbecue, and at least fifty people telling us how good we looked together. She was one of seven, raised in Corning, where weddings were community events. You didn't just marry the person—you married the town.

I, on the other hand, was an only child. And I had already been married once — at 22 — to a lovely woman from Trinidad. That wedding taught me a few things. When you mix Jamaicans and Trinidadians at a formal event, ensure the dance floor is big enough for both styles… and have a referee on standby.

We even had two wedding cakes—a Trinidadian and a Jamaican—because neither side could agree on what counted as a proper celebration. The Jamaicans said the Trinidadian cake was too dry, and the Trinidadians said the Jamaican cake was too heavy. A near fistfight about the playlist between the first toast and the third reggae track broke out. I remember thinking, "Never again."

So when Berkeley started talking about a big party, I froze.

“I just want something beautiful,” she said one night, flipping through bridal magazines. “A moment I’ll remember forever.”

I nodded. “What about a honeymoon you’ll remember forever?”

She looked up, suspicious.

“I’m serious. We could get married in Europe — somewhere stunning and quiet. Then, spend a month traveling. No RSVPs. No table centerpieces. Just us.”

But I had an ace up my sleeve.

“There’s another way,” I said. “San Martino. A little hilltop town in northern Italy.”

I knew the mayor there—we had met during a previous trip. He was a kind, dignified man with a broad smile and a love of music. I wrote to him, explained the situation, and within days, he replied: Come. I will marry you myself.

Berkeley's eyes lit up. Suddenly, this wasn’t just a workaround — it was a story.

After some hesitation, she agreed. Though I could tell she was still accepting the idea of being walked down the aisle.

We went to the Italian Embassy in New York to start the paperwork. I fantasized about them handing us a stamped document and saying, “Buon viaggio!” Instead, the official frowned. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” he said. “There’s no guarantee the U.S. will recognize the marriage.”

Berkeley shot me that look — the one that said, So much for your grand idea.

Scene 2: The Guest List

We’d get married in our apartment on Park Avenue, then fly to Europe two days later for our honeymoon. No grand venue. No long speeches. Just love, intention, and a few people who mattered most.

“Let’s keep it small,” I said.

“How small?” Berkeley asked.

“Four people.”

She raised an eyebrow, but after a long talk — one of those pre-marriage negotiations that feels small on the surface but touches deeper waters — we agreed.

Berkeley invited Cassandra Wilson, her childhood friend and a brilliant jazz singer, and another friend whose name escapes me now. I asked Fred and Harriette — family in every sense but blood.

She found a minister from Harlem to officiate. I didn’t know him, but she said he had a good energy. Then came the surprise: he planned to bring his girlfriend.

“I’m not sure that makes sense,” I said. “We’re keeping this tiny. I’m not even inviting people I’ve loved for years. Why should a stranger be there?”

Berkeley, ever gracious but immovable when she needed to be, insisted.

“She’s important to him. He wants her there.”

I didn’t understand it. I didn’t like it. But in the delicate balance of soon-to-be-married life, I let it go. Berkeley won the argument, and on June 30, 1985, the minister showed up — girlfriend in tow.

The wedding was lovely—awkward at moments, imperfect, but full of sincerity. We said our vows in front of the expansive Park Avenue windows, the city humming below. Afterward, we walked next door for dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant on Park near 37th Street, then took a slow carriage ride through Central Park—or, at least, that had been the plan.

Scene 3: Dinner with Strangers

We ordered everything on the menu. It felt right — abundant, joyful, a kind of edible celebration.

Berkeley sat across from me, glowing. The minister’s girlfriend sat to her right — the guest I hadn’t wanted. To my right sat the minister himself. Fred and Harriette, Cassandra, and Berkeley’s friend made up the rest of our eight-person table.

And then, just as the tea was being poured and the first dishes arrived, Berkeley turned to the woman beside her and said calmly:

"My husband didn’t want you here."

The woman’s mouth fell open. Her eyes bulged. She turned to me in shock, and before the silence could stretch any further, I said,

"That’s true. But now that you’re here, I’m glad you came."

I watched a wave of relief cross her face, her shoulders settling back into the evening. I still don’t understand why Berkeley said it. Maybe she needed to name the moment. Perhaps it was her way of balancing some unseen emotional scale.

We kept eating. Plate after plate arrived: duck, dumplings, sizzling beef, and tofu in bright red sauce. The table is filled with color, steam, and conversation.

Then, somewhere between the fifth and sixth dish, the minister put down his chopsticks, looked around the table, and said:

"Your wedding is legal, but I want you to know I am from another planet."

There was a pause.

No one laughed. No one asked which planet. No one even blinked.

I glanced at his girlfriend, who was now watching me again, waiting to see how I’d respond. But I didn’t.

We just kept eating.

Because by then, I was learning that marriage — like life — isn’t about controlling every detail. It’s about letting the unexpected pull up a chair at your table and learning to pass the dumplings anyway.

Scene 4: The Ride That Didn’t Happen

After the last dish was cleared and the minister returned to whatever galaxy he came from, the night wasn’t over.

Berkeley still had one thing she wanted: a carriage ride through Central Park.

It had been part of the plan—a romantic finale to our small wedding day. I had agreed to it, promised it, and even imagined it: us bundled under a thin blanket, the soft clop of hooves on pavement, trees overhead, the city humming quietly in the background.

But by the time dinner ended, I was spent. The emotional push and pull of the day — the guest list debates, the awkward moment at dinner, the minister’s planetary confession — had taken something out of me. I felt drained, like I had run an invisible marathon.

“I don’t think I can do it tonight,” I said.

Berkeley looked at me, surprised. Her disappointment filled the space between us before she said a word.

“But we planned this,” she said. “It’s our wedding night.”

“I know. I just… I need to rest.”

The air changed. There wasn’t a fight, exactly. But there was an argument — the kind born from mismatched expectations, unspoken emotional debts, and the weight of a day that hadn’t gone quite how we had imagined.

There was no carriage ride. No quiet laughter under the stars. No cinematic ending.

Instead, our wedding night was uneventful. Quiet. A little sad.

And though I didn’t know how to name it then, I carried something heavy into sleep that night — a minor ache of regret. I had made it through the ceremony, the dinner, the surprises. But when it came time to give just a little more — to finish the day the way she had dreamed — I pulled back.

I told myself I was too tired. And maybe I was. But love, I would learn, often lives in those small last efforts — the moments when you give just a little more, not because you feel like it but because you know the moment matters.

That night, I didn’t know that yet.

But I would.

Reflection: The Ripple

I wish I had taken her on that carriage ride.

Not because it would have made the night perfect — nothing about that day was perfect. But because it would have been a small, beautiful act of presence. A gesture that said, I see you. I know what this means to you. I’m still showing up.

At the time, I told myself we’d done enough. The ceremony, the dinner, the surreal company—it was a full day. The ride felt like a footnote—unnecessary.

But it wasn’t.

The truth is, I wasn’t yet attuned to Berkeley’s emotional rhythms. I didn’t fully understand how much meaning she packed into moments or how much my dismissals — however quiet — could echo.

We weren’t intimate that night. There was no great rift, no lasting wound, but there was a ripple — a quiet signal that I had missed something important. And I would forget things again. In the early years of our marriage, I often struggled to see her emotional world with clarity. I was still operating from the head — rational, measured, often self-protective — not yet comfortable in deep feeling.

But I would learn. Slowly. Unevenly. Through both joy and friction.

During our honeymoon, I started to recognize some of her patterns—like how she would pick fights every time we arrived somewhere new. It took me a while to understand that it wasn’t really about me—it was about uncertainty, anxiety, and the discomfort of transition. Once she settled, she returned to her calm, thoughtful self.

That first night — the ride that didn’t happen — didn’t break us. But it did mark something. A signal from the universe that I still had to grow.

And I have.

That night was part of my slow pivot — from left brain to right, from logic to empathy, from self to us.