“What I loved about our wedding weekend was that you couldn’t tell who was here for the bride or for the groom. It felt like one big family reunion or a mini SpelHouse/KU homecoming!” says Jackson-born, Chicago-based Nia Reddix-Jones about her spring wedding. Set in a romantic venue in Portugal, Reddix-Jones married her husband, Cameron Jones, a Chicago-native, surrounded by loved ones. 

“We were very intentional about curating an experience for our guests that felt healing,” she shares. “With all that is happening in America, we wanted to create a safe space for these beautiful black faces to come together to celebrate black love and each other,” she continued about the 160 plus guests that showed up. 

She adds how important a moment of celebration and joy was for her family especially. “My brother passed away,” she shares. And in the middle of that grief, she met Cameron, via Hinge, after he gave her his “monthly rose” on the app, and gravitated towards her playful Zoolander reference on her profile. “I knew he was the one after our second date. I was worried that I was trauma bonding because the way that I was so happy after we met during such a dark period in my life, and I was still grieving, was alarming,” she reflects. “But it wasn’t trauma bonding, I genuinely fell in love with someone that felt like home. What really sealed the deal was discovering so many coincidences between us.”

A year after they met, “my uncle passed one year later, and then two of my favorite cousins tragically passed.” All of whom were meant to be at their wedding. That said, “our wedding wasn’t just about spending all this money on a fantastic party, but to show that no matter what is happening around us, no matter how intense the storm is, we’ll always find the rainbow on the other side,” she says.

You can imagine, then, that during her getting ready process, emotions were high. “My sister kept crying tears of joy, I was crying, the bridesmaids were crying,” she says. “You would’ve thought we were all on our cycle or something,” she adds with a laugh. Meanwhile, her Gospel playlist grounded and centered them through it all. Similarly, “I kept repeating to myself, ‘it’s all in God’s hands,’” she shares. Some champagne, of course, didn’t hurt, either. 

The day of rituals were just as important as the lead-up as well. “I prayed and meditated every day and tried not to get stressed out,” she shares. “I wouldn’t say I was a bridezilla (Cam might say otherwise), but for the most part, I felt like I did a good job keeping myself relaxed throughout the planning process especially since I was the wedding planner,” she shares. “Planning my own wedding was relaxing, in ways. I was able to lean in on talents that I forgot I had. I hand painted the seating chart, I hand beaded my veil, we hand wrote each guest their own personal letter, I designed all of the signage,” she says. “It was a lot of detail that I can’t even fully put into words that went into this wedding. Down to the tributes. I didn’t want a traditional memorial table, instead, I created cocktail recipe books inspired by family members that physically weren’t present that we gave out as party favors.”

As for the inspiration for the look itself, “fly was the theme,” she says. “For the rehearsal brunch, I really wanted the vibe to be similar to a Rockefeller brunch. For the actual wedding, the look I was going for was a true vintage romance look with a southern twist,” she says. 

Her dress while getting ready was from Meshki, as opposed to traditional bridal PJs. “I wanted to feel confident the whole day and the dress I found made me feel like a pampered princess,” she says. 

The dress for the actual wedding was from a wedding designer in Jackson, Mississippi, Samantha Woo, who owns Samantha Woo Bridal. “It was important to me to work with a designer from my home town and also work with a minority owned business,” she shares. “Samantha was actually the one that picked out my dress for me and together we designed the back of the dress.”

When it came to her outfit changes for the dinner,  turned to The Real Real. “To be honest, the majority of my wedding looks and accessories came from The Real Real,” including her shoes, a few bags, and both outfit changes. “I knew I wanted to do an outfit change because I physically couldn’t sit down in my actual wedding dress but I also didn’t want to spend a crazy amount of money on 4 different outfits.”