dear beloved community,

 

one year ago, we were celebrating our union with you. as we reflect on our blessings from the last 365+, we feel so much deep gratitude to YOU, the collective of care that showered us with love to shepherd us into this next phase of our union. we cannot say thank you enough for all of your support and all of your love. our wedding day was filled with so much pure and tender sacred energy because you each brought your warmth into the space, and it nourished us all, deeply. thank you for showing up for us, for celebrating us, and for all of the ways that each of you have honored our love and our lives. & as we settle into our one year anniversary celebration season, we gift you with this virtual remembrance of the special day that each of you made possible, as a small token of our appreciation for your love, care, and support of our marriage.

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on December 28th, 2020, we gave ourselves a spiritual wedding ceremony.. just us, our god, and our ancestors at the Mendocino ocean, wrapped in ritual and rooted in love.. we became husband and wife on that day.. 

 

we got engaged on ree's 27th birthday, January 2020, and we had been planning a wedding for June 2021, but covid had other plans.. 2020 had been so hard on us both and we wanted to end the year with our union spiritually solidified, even if we couldn’t have the wedding we had dreamed of..

 

on August 18th, 2022, we finally got to experience the community celebration we had prayed for.. made possible by each of you, &it was truly beyond our wildest dreams.. it was so much more magical than we could have ever imagined!!! it was spiritual, ancestral, playful, light hearted, divine, healing.. &it honored all of our parts..

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we jumped the broom and witnessed our mothers light candles to honor the sacred union. we read sobonfu some as the grounding guiding text for our love. we poured libations for the ancestors of our lineage. we shouted asè and heard briana ward’s echo. we laughed and smiled in awe and glee as bri stole the show with her claps and laughs and adlibs and giggles. we cried during speeches of uncles who remembered the father of the groom. alphius ward. father of osceola. proud ancestor sending flowers from heaven. 

 

we held hands and sang delta hymns. we cut cakes and cut rugs and danced to the oldies of our childhoods. 

 

it was the most perfect day. and even as we know that perfection does not exist, it truly was the most perfect day. because each of you showed up in love, as love, and welcomed us to do the same. each of you poured from your own altars of ancestral magic wisdom and curated a web of care that held us in this shepherding. 

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community came from far and wide to celebrate our union and it meant so so much to us.. to feel so deeply loved and held by so many beautiful souls, and to know that our love is so deep rooted in sacred beloved community, it was a deeply transformative experience.. 

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thank you thank you thank you to all of our beloved community who came from all over the country to honor this love.. #blackloveheals.. forreal.. in all it’s phases, in all of its forms..

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&family, so much has happened and so much has changed in just one year!

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Osceola traveled to Antarctica, and was accepted to an artist residency at Stanford to travel to study the guitar in Brazil. Ree finished her PhD and started a Postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. Together, we've traveled and cooked and hiked and explored, listened to new records and redecorated the house, and thoroughly enjoyed the nesting of newly married life, and the gift of each others' company. And in the face of all those blessings, there has been hardship too.

 

We lost our beloved brother Turner Cooper so suddenly and unexpectedly. His smile and warmth at the wedding was truly a gift, and we continue to mourn this tragic loss.

 

[ We are so deeply saddened to inform you that one of our dear brothers, Turner Cooper, has transitioned into the ancestral realm. Turner flew from Tulsa to The Bay to join us for our wedding, and it meant so much to have him there! A member of Ree’s SpelHouse community and Osceola’s Harvard Graduate School of Education community, Turner holds a special place in both of our hearts. He embodied the ethic of radical care and healing love which exist at the heart of our intention for our ceremony. His light, laughter, joy and love lives on through each of us who remember him. We honor his legacy and extend our deepest gratitude for the light that he has been within our beloved community. ] 

 

In addition to this grief, we have also struggled with family illness, growing pains, and just the everyday weight of tryna survive while being young, gifted and Black. 

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Through it all, our love for each other and beloved community remains the buoying force to keep us afloat through the highs and lows, ups and downs, waves and rides of life.

 

We know that the strength of this community that witnessed our vows will carry us through each phase of this union, and we are so deeply grateful for you all. Please continue to check in on us, love up on us, and send your loving healing prayers over our home and our marriage as we continue to love and grow alongside each other.

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Xo, The Wards

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