E8 OnLove NUPTIALS RYAN RAYBURN/BELLA PICTURES
Maggie Fox-Kirsch & Philip Wilkerson III
Maggie Fox-Kirsch is a children’s mental health therapist. Philip Wilkerson III is a graduate student. They’re 25 and live in Alexandria.
Wedding date: July 3.
Locations: Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Alexandria and Fort Belvoir Officers’ Club.
Guests: 190.
How they met: Phil and Maggie went to rival Alexandria high schools but met one day at the public library. Maggie thought Phil was weird at first, so they didn’t become friends until summer 2003, after high school graduation. A mutual friend asked what Maggie thought of Phil, and when Phil started talking to her to protect his reputation, they wound up talking every day.
The proposal: Phil wanted to include their dog in the proposal, so he dressed it in a Santa outfit and attached the ring with a pipe cleaner. He then drove to Maggie’s. As Phil was bringing the dog into the house, he activated a musical device on the Santa costume and the dog panicked, running around the house with the ring. Phil and Maggie were afraid the dog would run outside, but they caught him and got the ring. Phil then breathlessly asked Maggie to be his wife.
The wedding: They got married on Phil’s parents’ 28th anniversary in the Catholic church that both of them grew up attending. They incorporated African American and Jewish traditions.
Honeymoon: Cabo San Lucas. — Kathleen Hom
KLMNO
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old buddy. And peeking out from behind him was Slade. “All the noise dissipates. It gets really quiet,” he recalls. “And I actu- ally heard something say, ‘My son, I pre- sent to you your wife.’ When she looks at me I turn my head ’cause I’m like, ‘Oh my God. What just happened?’ ” As the three friends greeted each other
after the service, the normally loquacious Graves found himself unable to speak. “She’s looking at me and everybody’s looking at me and nothing’s coming out,” he recalls. “In my head I’m going, ‘Say something, idiot! You better say some- thing!’ ”
Still, they exchanged phone numbers and Slade asked Graves to call and let her know he made it home safely. As they drove away, Graves began to tell his mother what he’d experienced at the wake. As they waited at a stoplight, Slade pulled up right beside them. Kenner rolled down her window and said, “Oh, we were just talking about you — my son thinks you’re so beautiful.’ ” Graves wilted with embarrassment, but when he dropped his mother off at home, he sent Slade a text: “It was really nice seeing you tonight. I look forward to what God has in store for us.” Slade assumed he was referring to their reunion as friends, and when she didn’t get a call from him that night, she dialed Graves’s number to see if he was okay. They spoke for almost an hour, catching up on the last 30 years. But for the next month he contacted her only through texting and e-mail. “He’d always been shy,” she says. “So I was like, ‘Okay, he’s a little shy, a little standoffish. I think he likes me, but maybe he just doesn’t know how to display it.’ ” When she finally called him again,
MARK GAIL/THE WASHINGTON POST
FATED:André Graves holds flower girls Ella Thomas, left, and Jahia Slade as he talks with ring bearer Damion Moore after the July 2 wedding in New Carrollton where Graves married Sharlena Slade, right, who God told him would be his wife.
by Ellen McCarthy
It was July 2, 2008, when André Graves heard God announce that Sharlena Slade would be his wife. Six weeks later he worked up the nerve
to let Slade in on the plan. She quickly responded: “What?!?” It was a shock, but not as much as it might have been, had their entire knowl- edge of each other not been rooted in the church. The two first met in the mid-1970s, as children attending Faith Bible Church in Northwest Washington. Graves liked Slade just fine, but was far more interested in palling around with her brother. And as they entered adoles- cence, the boys had made a pact not to date each other’s sisters. But that became amoot point when each family moved on to a different church and they all lost touch.
STUDIO N PHOTOGRAPHY
Shannon Simpers & Mark Caine
Shannon Simpers, 27, is a waitress. Mark Caine, 29, serves in the Royal Air Force. They will live in Lossiemouth, Scotland.
Wedding date: July 10.
Locations: St. Mary Catholic Church in Alexandria and Mount Vernon Inn. Guests: 68.
How they met: Mark and some colleagues were spending the last night of their business trip at an Irish pub in Chinatown in November 2007. A stranger asked if they wanted to meet some American women. The stranger, who Shannon thought was Mark’s travel agent, had seen Shannon and her friends at the bar, as well. He introduced Mark to Shannon, and both say it was love at first sight. They set up a lunch date for the next day before Mark went to the airport. They assumed they would not see each other after that but ended up trading e-mails for the next nine months.
The proposal: In May 2009, Mark and Shannon were visiting Mount Vernon, a place both loved. Mark had planned to pop the question on the lawn in front of the mansion, but it started raining. Instead, he walked her to the gardens, where Shannon kept wandering to admire the flowers. Mark eventually guided her to a quiet corner and got down on one knee.
The wedding: Mark brought little bottles of Scotch whisky from overseas for favors while Shannon designed the programs and menus. Mark said he was nervous with anticipation until he saw Shannon walk down the aisle.
Honeymoon: Busch Gardens and Williamsburg.
— Kathleen Hom BRIDES ON TV TLC’s wedding ‘Dress’ spinoff show gets ‘the Full Monte’ by Emily Yahr Take one stressed-out bride, a few opin-
ionated family members and a rolling camera or two, and you’ve got the recipe for “Say Yes to the Dress,” TLC’s popular wedding gown-shopping reality series. Now add Southern accents and a stylist who specializes in bluntness, and you’ve got the show’s first spinoff: “Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta,” which debuted Friday. Alexandria’s own Monte Durham was tapped to be the new show’s tough-mind- ed fashion director, the one to walk into the chaos, look the bride straight in the eye and say: “Have you lost your mind?” But his approach isn’t to resort to Simon- Cowell, crush-your-dreams rudeness. He’s more like the friend who says what he’s thinking — for your own benefit. “I’m here to make you look the best you can on your wedding day, but I will be the first to tell you ‘no,’ ” says Durham, an im- peccably groomed 53-year-old man whose eyes say exactly what he’s thinking at all times. “ ‘Your backside looks too big,’ or ‘You’re too busty for this,’ or ‘You’re too tall for this.’ ” He pauses, as if he could go on about the
many mistakes he’s seen in his nearly two- decade career as a wedding stylist. “The most important thing is, you’ve
got to be comfortable,” he says. “When you put that dress on, that’s the ultimate goal.”
and became immersed in the local wed- ding scene. Through his travels, he developed a friendship with Lori Allen, the owner of Bridals by Lori in Atlanta, and he worked on her daughter’s wedding — an event fea- tured on WE tv’s “Platinum Weddings.” TLC noticed Allen’s store and eventually decided it was the ideal location for the “Say Yes to the Dress” spinoff, and they had Durham in mind for the show from the outset.
WALLING MCGARITY/TLC
REAL TALK: Monte Durham gives no-nonsense advice to Atlanta brides.
Durham, a West Virginia native, has been telling people what looks great (and what definitely doesn’t) for years, and credits his openness to growing up with his mother and three sisters. He began his career as a personal shopper at Wood- worth & Lothrop before studying hair and makeup at London’s College of Fashion. From there, he went on to work at Eliza- beth Arden Red Door in Tysons Corner
“I think he’s very brutally honest to brides, but they appreciate it,” says Nancy Daniels, TLC’s senior vice president of pro- duction and development, who calls Dur- ham “a great character” on the show. “He does it in a way that he’s always coming from the right place and wanting brides to look their best. They’re about to make a major investment . . . and they like to have someone who’s going to give them input.” The half-hour series airs at 9 and 9:30
on Friday nights. In the premiere, Durham gave viewers a taste of his brand of bridal control: One grandma hated everything her granddaughter tried on, so finally Dur- ham sent out the bride-to-be in a form- fitting dress cut above the knee. Grandma was horrified. Durham was pleased. “Now that we shocked Grandma, I’m
going to pull a dress I know she’ll love,” Durham said confidently. Sure enough, when he sent out the 22-year-old in a stun- ning gown far more elegant than the one
before it, Grandma had no choice but to say yes. “We call that ‘the full Monte,’ ” Durham
says, on a recent morning from his home in Alexandria.
Durham has stepped away from doing weddings (his travel schedule from Atlan- ta to Alexandria and to West Virginia, where he runs the Studio M Salon at the Resort at Glade Springs, is too difficult), but he likes to “keep his hands in it.” Today, he’s doing a trial run for Abby Bonder, a 29-year-old bride-to-be from Washington, whose wedding is in October. As he works, he chats with the bride-to-be’s mother and his good friend Laura Weatherly, a wed- ding planner who runs Engaging Affairs and has worked with Durham in the past. The two are swapping horror stories about weddings they’ve done together. “Laura has had to ease the tension after some of my boisterous outbursts,” Dur- ham admits. Yet Durham doesn’t plan to censor him- self on the show any more than he does in real life.
“I guess it would be offensive to some,” Durham says, admitting he was nervous his personality might not translate to the small screen. “So I was a little concerned about that. But then I said, ‘Oh, why not? I’m just going to give them the full Monte.’ And that seems to be working for me right now.”
yahre@washpost.com
Slade, now 46, grew up and got mar- ried. She had two children, worked as a budget officer at the National Zoo and re- lied on faith when her 20-year marriage began to crumble. For years after that, she was a churchgoing single mom, more focused on PTA meetings and movies with friends than looking for a boyfriend. Graves, brother of renowned opera
singer Denyce Graves, admits his life took a more shadowy path. After a strict up- bringing filled with Junior Achievement meetings and extra homework assign- ments, he rebelled. Tired of being teased as a nerd, he started drinking. If his mother’s phone rang late at night, “It was, ‘Okay, what did André do this
“I used to pray, once my life started changing, ‘Send me somebody for me’ ”
Sharlena Slade & André Graves
time?’ ” he says. Graves served in the Marine Corps af- ter high school, but then returned to Washington. He stopped going to church and never married, though he had two children with a woman he dated for many years. By 2005, his life seemed shiftless and empty. He checked into a veterans hospital in Martinsburg, W.Va., where he met “some people who cared more for me than I cared for myself at the time.” He decided to move to West Virginia permanently to “refocus and get my life back together.” Graves found a house in Charles Town, got work as a manager at a Weis Markets grocery and quit drinking. Without the temptations of the city, his life was clean but lonely. “I used to pray,
once my life started changing, ‘Send me somebody for me, Father. Send me some- one just for me,’ ” he says. In the spring of 2008, Slade was push- ing her cart through the aisle of a Lowe’s in New Carrollton when she spotted Graves’s mother, Dorothy Kenner. They chatted for a bit, asking about each oth- er’s families. Kenner even called her son to let him say hello to Slade. (He was an- noyed by the interruption to his com- puter game.) Slade promised to pass his information on to her brother. When the father of another old friend
from Faith Bible Church passed away that July, Slade and her brother planned to attend the wake. Graves and his moth- er did the same. The room was loud and crowded when Graves caught sight of his
Graves suggested a date to a Nationals baseball game. Two weeks later he asked if he could come worship at her church. She was late to arrive that morning and as she slid into the pew next to him, he turned to face the other direction. “I didn’t want to be distracted,” he explains. “I said, ‘God, I’m in church — how bad is it that I’m thinking about being with this woman? I want this woman.’ ” As they said goodbye in the parking lot, he decided to really look into her eyes for the first time. “I knew that she would know what my feelings were,” he says. “And I did,” she recalls. “I knew at that
very moment. That, ‘Okay, this is gonna work.’ That was really good. That was love. I just could not believe the way he looked at me, with those engaging eyes and his smile. I just melted.” On the phone a few days later Slade
asked what his intentions were toward her. That’s when Graves told her she would be his wife — “just matter-of- factly,” he says — and she reacted with shock.
“But I believed him,” she says. “As soon as he said it, I believed him.” He began to pursue her, taking Slade on trips to Williamsburg and Chicago. He bought her books she had mentioned and baskets full of her favorite lotions. He mailed her a card every day for 114 con- secutive days. And just before Christmas, as they were wrapping presents, he hand- ed Slade a diamond ring and asked if she would marry him. “Some time ago I had prayed for a hus- band to love me for who I am — for exact- ly who I am,” she says. “And I believe that’s what he does.” Graves beamed as Slade made her en-
trance to their July 2 wedding, descend- ing in a glass elevator to the atrium at Treetops in Hyattsville. His eyes pooled and voice cracked while he pledged his life to her. “To realize that prophecy came true
was very touching for me,” he said after the wedding. “It may sound sappy, but I truly believe this. I believe that God has plans for everyone. I think that our mar- riage was predestined a long time ago.”
mccarthye@washpost.com
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