Destinee Morris and Marquez Floyd, of Covington, met in sixth grade. 

At the time, Destinee said Marquez had a crush on her. The feeling wasn’t mutual; however, she thought highly of him.

“I always thought he was sweet,” she said. 

After more than 20 years, Marquez used social media to rekindle the pair’s friendship.

“It was just a general ‘How are you doing? What you been up to?’ message,” she recalled. “Nothing flirtatious or out the way at all. After that one message, we kept in touch and found ourselves talking everyday.”

Destinee said Marquez drives trucks for work, so they spoke on the phone each day until he would return home to Covington.

“He came to my house for our first official date where I cooked him dinner and set up a nice candlelight table, and he showed up with flowers,” Destinee said.

After the two started dating, the couple soon moved in together and realized they wanted to get married.

On Destinee’s 30th birthday, in July 2019, Marquez popped the question.

“For my birthday I had a small, intimate dinner with all my closest friends of who I wanted to be in my wedding and surprised them with favors asking them to be in my wedding,” she said. 

Destinee said the couple planned their wedding throughout 2020, “but it was extremely challenging due to COVID and shutdowns. 

“We ended up pushing our wedding from May 2020 to October 2020, and it went from being a destination wedding to getting married at Pristine Lakeside Chapel in Jonesboro.

In addition to the pandemic, many obstacles made for “stressful” wedding planning, including a plethora of issues trying to find the perfect dresses.

“My bridesmaid literally got her dress back two days before my wedding,” she said.

Weather was also a factor in rising stress levels, as it rained on the day of the wedding, Oct. 24, 2020.  

“The day of my wedding we had a beautiful brunch at my house, and we ate while each girl was getting their makeup done (the makeup artist was over an hour late). 

“Before getting my make up done, I got a call from my wedding coordinator who tells me because it had been raining and did not stop, and I was suppose to have an outside wedding, that my wedding would have to be moved from outside into the chapel.” 

Destinee said the news was overwhelming and she cried.

“I had visioned my wedding being lit up outside in front of the lake, and that’s where we rehearsed,” she said. 

Panic, again, set in for Destinee. She said she was worried about not getting to rehearse in the chapel. But when it came wedding time, all of the worries she had before seemed to dissipate.

“Seeing those doors of the chapel open and seeing my handsome groom standing up there, everything looked so beautiful, and all the chaos, all the stress, and all the madness went out the door,” she said. “It actually ended up being one of the best days of my life, and everything that we went through was worth it.”

More about their Wedding Day:

• Food, Catering, Flowers, Cake - Prestine Lakeside Chapel

• Photos - Shundra Kelton (Photography by Shana)

• Hair- Diversity Hair Studio (Kelly Best)