Vows — Love Match
A chance encounter at Spencer’s Tailoring on a Saturday afternoon set love in motion for Trevin Nairne and Melissa Rattray. Nairne, export manager at Best Dressed Chicken, and Rattray, assistant curriculum development officer at the Council of Community Colleges, crossed paths in March 2012, when she accompanied her sister Desiree to the store.
“I was bored, so I went on the road with her,” Rattray shared with Vows. “Trevin had been in the store waiting for a friend for almost an hour, and by sheer coincidence, the friend turned out to be mine, as well.” Introductions were made, but she remembered Trevin “playing it cool and not saying much, though he later admitted seeing me out on a few occasions and thinking I was pretty and [that he] admired the way I carried myself”.
The curiosity factor was stoked on both their parts — Rattray received a call shortly after leaving Spencer’s from their mutual friend saying that Nairne wanted to know more about her. Giddy with delight, she went searching on Facebook for her pursuer’s profile, which she successfully did. “I sent a message to him and we messaged back and forth for a few days,” she remembered.
“He had heard from our mutual friend that I loved soca so he invited me to J’Ouvert, and we started to go out on dates a lot after that, and after a few months realised we really clicked and loved each other’s company and became inseparable.”
Fifteen months of courtship led to a surprise engagement on the downtown Kingston waterfront that had Nairne on bended knee and Rattray all teary-eyed.
“He told me we were going to the waterfront to meet one of his friends for a business-related matter… when we got there, I asked where his friend was and he told me he saw his car coming down the road. We both came out of the vehicle and were looking out at the harbour, and he told me he was going for a clipboard in the vehicle. When he returned, he held my hand and went down on one knee. When I asked what he was doing, he took the ring box out of his pocket and asked me to marry him,” Rattray recalled.
The couple’s big day came late last year, with Struan Castle Garden in Stony Hill the chosen venue for their pink-and-black themed ceremony and reception.
The bride, stunning in a strapless, white David Tutera gown from Bliss Bridal Boutique, marched up the aisle on the arm of her father, Trade Winds Citrus financial controller Phillip Rattray, to meet her groom, looking sharp in a black suit with a fuchsia vest and ascot tie.
Officiated by Reverend Adhanair Jones, the sunset ceremony — styled and executed by Petals and Promises — saw the couple’s proud parents, retired foreign currency manager at Victoria Mutual Building Society Shirley Rattray and her husband Phillip, financial controller at Trade Winds Citrus; and theatre director and producer Trevor Nairne and Doris Blake, looking on, and anticipating their offspring’s new chapter of life would be richly blessed.
Entering the reception, the couple’s first dance was to The Temptations’ More Love, Your Love, ahead of cutting their Suelan Chung-designed four-tiered black and white cake decorated with rhinestones cascading down one side.
The newly-weds enjoyed a oneweek honeymoon at the Grand Palladium Hotel.
