Why This Queer Couple Did Away With Traditions For Their Wedding
| 12/13/20
Congratulations to Angelic and Chidera Eneh-Ortiz who were wed on May 24, 2019.
After initially meeting in college eight years ago during an NAACP event, Angelic and Chidera became almost immediate friends. According to Chidera, the pair "reconnected again when Anji's then-boyfriend came over to show her off to my best friend and roommate at the time. Whew -- scandal!" The reunion sparked something that eventually became more.
"I had fractured my foot on the dance floor [one night] and she came over to hang out," Chidera tells Out of how the love manifested for her. "We spent the day on the couch watching Downton Abbey -- like the queers we are -- and I fell in love with her right there on that couch. In the coming months, I decided to write her a love letter confessing my feelings. Too afraid to hand it to her, I hid it inside her ballet shoe before class." For Angelic, love came as Chidera was leaving for a summer job. As she was being driven home she remembers "silently crying in the passenger seat."
The Engagement
The engagement itself was a 2017 Venice surprise.
"It was just our first international trip together, her first time in Italy and the airline lost ALL of our luggage!" Chidera explains. "Not the best start to our trip." Still, they made it work. While there the two started "exploring" which was honestly just a cover to find Kinga LeftSka, the engagement photographer. With only a Google Earth photo and a Nigerian-Italian cousin as guide and translator, the pair got lost. Sunset fast approaching (which was the meet-up time) and Angelica's patience wearing thin, they finally made it happen.
"We found the location in the knick of time, but I didn't even know what Kinga looked like!" Chidera says. "While I tried distracting Anji, my cousin went around asking for a photographer. I got the go-ahead from Kinga just as Anji bit into her sandwich [that she had made for us before we left.]"
The Wedding
Even though it was before the pandemic, things were decidedly intimate. While the pair originally was going to do a Game of Thrones-themed Nigerian-Puerto Rican-American "extravaganza" with real-life dire wolves, they quickly decided the idea was a little too large and abandoned it. Instead, the two wed in Surrogate's Court New York with about 20 of their closest friends and family before ending the day at their favorite ramen spot in the Financial District.
"There was a great sense of ownership while planning our wedding," Angelic says. "We released the idea of anything traditional and focused on putting our union first."
"There will always be these reservations with being Black, gay women from an African family," Chidera continues. "Traditions weren't created with queer inclusion in mind, so we focused on how we wanted to feel. Our intention for the day was to be present, have a sense of ease, and to be celebrated."
