Ghetto Weddings, II
This is the column on Juvenile's recent wedding:
Mr. & Mrs. Juvenile
Rapper weds nurse in a ceremony worth the wait
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Chris Rose
A local music millionaire recently got married; maybe you heard about it.
The bride was more than two hours late and her dress was valued in the range of a sporty SUV and the wedding guests were cut from the recording industry elite.
No, it wasn't Britney's Studio City backyard ceremony, where the guests dined on ribs and chicken fingers and listened to a boom box before donning jogging sweats and hitting an Irish pub to celebrate the Big Day.
No, this was the wedding of Juvenile -- aka Terius Gray -- an equally flamboyant and controversial Louisiana music success story, whose wedding earlier this month ranks up there with our most colorful hitching tales.
Since most of what this paper has recorded of Juvie's life over the past few years has been more about rap sheets than rap music, it's nice to report a love story for your enjoyment.
Assuming that he's not going to place a wedding announcement in the Living section, I offer one here as a token of our appreciation for this well-publicized prodigy of the Magnolia housing project, whose infectious 1999 hit, "Back That Azz Up," provided a poignant counter-balance to the cheesy Boy Band music of that period and helped make the recording label Cash Money Records a household name and industry playa.
First of all, the bride, Shadonna Jones -- a nurse from St. Louis -- was more than 2½ hours late for the scheduled 6 p.m. ceremony at the Victory Fellowship church on Airline Drive.
She hadn't even showered by 6:30 and then came the Hollywood-style makeup, hair and dress routine. This took a very long time. Said local bridal designer Linda Lee: "We practically had to sew her into the dress. She said she wanted it tight, so we made it tight. When we were finished, she looked like she was painted into it."
Lee added: "And she's got booty," which one should hope, given Juvie's signature hit.
At the church, the groom, decked out in a gold suit, and his posse -- he calls them his "regulators" -- did that tap the shoes, check the wrist thing for a while and then got a little nervous.
"For the first hour, we were, you know: Women -- they can be slow," said Juvie's manager, Aubrey Francis. "Then we kept getting reports: They're on their way, they're on their way, they're on their way." All this sounds like the weather forecasters on TV talking about a hurricane, and a rumor went up that the bride actually arrived at the church but then turned back for some finishing touches, lending new meaning to the term "contraflow."
In fact, she was still getting ready.
Hard to say how the several hundred guests in the church managed to keep their patience about them, but Juvenile and backstage pals took care of business: They ordered in from Popeyes to hold them over until the reception.
Said Francis: "I guess if we'd known it was going to take so long, we would have ordered for everyone."
Once the wedding was under way, with both bride and groom standing at the altar, the presiding minister, Bishop Darryl Brister from the Beacon Light International Baptist Cathedral, lent a contemporary edge to the proceedings.
"He said there was so much bling on the altar that he could hardly see," one spectator told me and yes, he used the term "bling."
Juvie and Shadonna's necks and fingers shone like a vast sea of icicles on a glistening Wisconsin winter morning -- to say nothing of Juvie's diamond-encrusted walking stick, by NYC's reigning hip-hop accessorizer, Jacob the Jeweler, and the 10,000 stones, beads and crystals that Lee attached to Shadonna's Demetrios-designed silk gown.
It was a fitting look to receive an altar visit by R&B superstar Brian McKnight, who appeared from the wings to serenade the bride.
Nice touch.
At the reception at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, guests were required to be patient once again. The wedding party and closest associates went to a separate dining room to eat, not to return to the general festivities for another hour or two.
And anyone expecting a ghetto-fabulous reception would have been disappointed: Guests were treated instead to a tableau of tables drenched in flowers and ice sculptures and fine silver for a sit-down dinner of filet mignon followed by a chocolate fondue fountain.
Very tony indeed. The crowd content was sparse on the rappers and gangsta types from Juvie's notorious past. Said manager Francis: "There were more executives than artists. Lots of lawyer types."
How far we have traveled.
The party rocked until the wee hours, as weddings do. So begins the next stage in the life of Juvenile.
And it begins with the present that he offered his bride as a gift and a token to their future: 25 acres of land near LaPlace, upon which they will build their home.
. . . . . . .
Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune
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