New York marketing mavens Dawn Baxter and Derrin Woodhouse tied the knot with a traditional ceremony at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Englewood, New Jersey, followed by a lavish soiree in North Bergen. Share their love.
Dawn’s mother, sister, and friends help her get dressed for her big day.
It was important for Dawn to support minority vendors. She bought her wedding gown from the Black-owned Mark Ingram Bridal Atelier.
“I had a really great experience,” she remembers. “When I tried on my dress and I saw the look on my sister’s face it hit me like, ‘This is my dress.’ It felt like me, very relaxed. It was so comfortable I wore it the whole night.”
Derrin and Dawn are a stylish couple. The groom showed off his creative style with a silk bow tie and a custom-designed vest with four pockets.
Navy was one of Dawn and Derrin’s primary wedding colors. Her something blue had ‘red bottoms,’ as she chose satin, peep-toe, Christian Louboutin heels to walk down the aisle in.
Dawn’s platinum engagement ring features a two-carat radiant cut center stone with two baguettes on each side.
Derrin made sure he was fly from his head to his toes in a pair of Prada shoes.
As Derrin got dressed for his big day, he began to get nervous. Just then his bride sent him BBM asking him how he was doing?
“It was good to get that and it kind of just reassured me that everything was going to be OK.”
Dawn’s natural beauty look was created by Nichole Cambridge and her sophisticated up-do was styled by Clark Vincent of Ken Barboza Associates.
“He’s a good balance for me,” Dawn reveals of her new husband. “I feel like we do a good job of balancing one another.”
“I come from a place where marriage is a good thing — a place where people have been successful at it,” Dawn says. Here, she poses with her parents before walking down the aisle.
Both Dawn’s and Derrin’s parents have been married for over 40 years. Here, the bride poses with her in-laws.
Dawn’s sister Dana, public relations rep for ESSENCE, was her maid of honor.
“I was glad that she got a chance to walk down the aisle with her dad,” Derrin says. “I knew she was getting what she always wanted.”
“I thought I would be crying during my vows,” Dawn says, “but we spent a lot of time smiling. We were very happy.”
“When we actually kissed I was like, ‘Wow. This is it! We’re really married,’” Dawn exclaims.
The newlyweds solidify their bond by lighting a unity candle.
“I felt a great sense of joy and a great sense of being complete,” Derrin says of finally being married to Dawn.
Derrin’s wedding ring is a white gold wedding band with yellow gold trimming and Dawn’s is a platinum ring with three radiant-cut stones and two baguettes to match her engagement ring.
Derrin looks over his new wife’s shoulder as she signs the marriage certificate.
“We definitely want to have a family,” Dawn says. “I look forward to us growing as a couple and making our family bigger.”
Derrin says he fell in love with Dawn for her “commitment to her friends and family, her sense of style and her sense of overall caring.”
The Waterside restaurant in North Bergen, New Jersey, created a splendid spread for Dawn and Derrin’s cocktail hour including a seafood station.
“I felt like I could let my guard down with Derrin,” Dawn says of why she fell for her groom. “With Woody I feel like I can just be me.”
The wedding’s flower arrangements were created by Collin Abraham of Pollen Nation in Harlem, NYC.
Derrin and Dawn savored their first dance to “This is For the Lover in You” by Shalamar.
Dawn held her father close and danced to “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder.
Derrin and his mother smiled and swayed through “I’ll Be There,” by the Jackson Five.
Dana wishes her sister Dawn and her new brother-in-law Derrin a life of love and happiness.
“There’s a sense that, I’m responsible for this person and this person is responsible for me. There’s security in that and I look forward to the responsibility as well,” Dawn says.
Dawn and Derrin’s wedding cake was designed by Palermo Bakery in Ridgefield, New Jersey, and featured two tiers of yellow cake with hazelnut filling and two layers of chocolate cake with fudge filling.
The top of Dawn and Derrin’s wedding cake was custom made to look just like them. They even included their dog.
“I’m looking forward to growing old with Dawn and having a companion to share my experiences with and to grow with as a unit,” Derrin says.
Since Dawn is a marketing manager at Nike, it makes sense that she and Derrin are all about their kicks.
“It’s about enjoying life and moving forward with each other,” Dawn says of enjoying the rest of her days with Derrin.
Dawn and Derrin’s wedding was coordinated by David Watkins of The Watkins Project.
All photos by Jose Reyes at Jose Reyes Photography.
