Vows – Doing Love
The engagement took place a little after the stroke of midnight on Christmas Day, under the pretence of gifting her with a pair of much-desired chocolate diamond earrings. The gift box Shelleyanne opened contained instead a diamond princess-cut engagement ring. And, upon seeing it, there was silence. And as Andrew would say of Shelleyanne, this was the first time this has ever happened in their three-year relationship.
Friends since high school, Shelleyanne Edwards and Andrew Spence couldn’t have planned a more beautiful wedding. At minutes after ten on the morning of October 20, 2010, members of the wedding party made their way up the aisle as the first notes of Ave Maria resounded in the St Andrew Parish Church.
In tan suits and yellow ties, the groomsmen escorted the ‘ladies in green’ — all important women in the lives of Andrew and Shelleyanne, who also had their family and closest friends on hand to witness their nuptials. Wearing yellow dresses the colour of the sunshine, the bridesmaids followed carrying modest bouquets of white football chrysanthemums.
As the melody changed to Fools Rush In, the entrance to the church revealed a radiant Shelleyanne, who was escorted up the aisle by her father Kenneth Edwards — so nervous was she that she broke into bursts of laughter just to help ease her nerves.
Inspired by an Alfred Angelo design, family seamstress Annette Lyow recreated Shelleyanne’s dream gown — a white strapless creation, with sweetheart neckline, a pleated bodice and beaded breastplate. In her hands was a bouquet of football and spider chrysanthemums in green, yellow and white. Andrew meanwhile patiently awaited his bride at the top of the aisle, debonair in a tan suit with green tie — he and his groomsmen all wearing yellow button chrysanthemum boutonnières.
Event coordinator as well as matron-of-honour and cousin to the bride, Aiesha Panton of Pussbackfoot, went to work to set the tone for a simple ceremony in the morning, followed by an evening where family could come together to celebrate and enjoy the wonderful view of the city of Kingston, from The Deck at Shelleyanne’s uncle Errol Alberga Jr’s Stony Hill residence. Knowing that the bride was not a fussy person, for the ceremony, Aeisha used bells of Ireland in vases filled with limes, sticking to the theme of green, yellow and white for the church.The theme continued at the reception with small arrangements of chrysanthemums added to the mix.
Opting not to have a traditional reception, Andrew and Shelleyanne rejoined their guests in the evening for their post-wedding party, now dressed in more relaxed attire for the casual setting.
The bride’s aunt, Jennifer Goodison, decorated the groom’s cake, while Phil Williams, a friend of the mother-of-the-bride Dawn Edwards, created the wedding cake, which stood on three, square tiers, covered in white fondant, with green flowers decorating the edges.
Privately catered by some of Andrew’s co-workers as well as the bride’s aunt, Lorna Bell, guests enjoyed an array of local favourites and from the bar lychee martinis courtesy of Andrew’s aunt Joy Spence.
Coppershot disco and Jazzy T of Renaissance disco provided the musical styling for the evening, and everyone came together on a dance floor, surrounded by strands of hanging petals.
The couple honeymooned at the Goat Hill Villa in Hanover.
Thinking back to that Christmas morning, Shelleyanne reminisces on the ‘unromantic way’ in which Andrew rolled over and urged her to go back to bed — this was their engagement! But in hindsight his proposal was exactly how she would have wanted it, after all, this was Andrew’s way of doing things. Rev Franklyn said it well in his message during their ceremony, that “Love is a doing word.”
