Before Proposing, He Carried The Engagement Ring to My Parents to Bless it – Alice & Wesley!

And later surprised me!

Alice Barlow, a human resources manager, and Wesley Silver, a media personality (Radio, TV & Emcee), met in 2017 as she was leaving an event he had organized. “It was getting late and I had to go back home,” she recalls. “When I stepped out of the exit door, he was right in front of me.” Just like that, they exchanged numbers, and the rest has been history.

Their wedding was held on Thursday 24th, September 2020, they hosted a small reception at Hotel Africana, with 100 guests in attendance and thousands more who watched the event live on Youtube and on TV.

Their story

We met at his event that he holds once every year. It’s called ‘Beat Connect’. Beat Connect is a gospel evening dance party for Christians. It was my first time to attend. That was on Friday 2nd June 2017 at Garden City rooftop. It was getting late and I had to go back home. When I stepped out of the exit door he was right in front of me. He introduced himself as King Wesley and I responded that I’m Alice Barlow. He then asked if I was a daughter to Pastor Jack Barlow and I said that I wasn’t but he is my uncle. He requested me to pull out my phone and he read his number as I typed it in while he was watching. In my mind I was thinking who does this guy think he is? He then asked if I was single and I said yes. He intimated to me that he was single too, and then walked away. When he was around 4 metres away from me he turned around and spoke loudly saying ” you are in for a crazy ride!” I was like 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

The proposal

Wesley proposed to me on the 10th of August 2019. I was planning my friend’s surprise proposal with my other good friends, and he got in touch with my good friends and said “let us also plan for Alice’s proposal on the same day!” So they went behind my back and planned for the proposal to happen on the same day as one of my best friends’ (she’s called Joan). So, we were up and down for Joan, but lowkey they were also preparing mine.

The proposal happened at Piato, so we started with Joan’s proposal, which was at the upper part of restaurant, it was beautiful. After an hour we were asked to go pick her cake from downstairs. On reaching I found the same thing that had happened upstairs was happening to for me downstairs. I remember laughing in surprise that he had arranged this with my close friends and siblings. We were around 13 people, and it was a beautiful moment. Since he is a media personality, he was still lost for words. He didn’t know what to say even when he says he had practiced. Nevertheless, he said some sweet words and asked me to be his wife. Of course I said yes!

I later found out that he had visited my parents the day before to ask them for my hand in marriage. He had also carried the engagement ring to them to pray for it, and I found that really beautiful. I was touched! He talks about how he travelled to Dubai earlier that year in May and had ensured to look for the perfect ring. As boyfriend and girlfriend we talked about marriage a lot and he would ask me what kind of ring I wanted, and I told him I wanted a rose gold ring, which he ensured to get. I had also told him I didn’t fancy rings with big diamonds, and he got me a ring with very small diamonds and I was like, oh wow, he remembered!!

Planning the wedding

Planning the wedding has been one heck of a ride, if I may say. Originally, we had planned for the wedding to happen in June, but then as we were getting ready in March, then whole pandemic thing happened and then came lockdown. It took a toll, on my side especially because I had imagined and dreamt about this beautiful day, walking down that aisle, and saying “I do to my best friend”. It took quite a toll on me but I thank God for Wesley because he on the other hand was the strong one and he was always telling me, “Alice, you know what, its okay, it’s fine, everything works out for good”, and he once told me there’s no testimony without a test. He was very supportive and very encouraging. His level of faith is one that beats my understanding, and everybody else’s.

He saw everything in it’s smallest form even if it looked like a huge mountain. Slowly by slowly, as the months went by from March to June, we decided we are in the new normal, we have to settle for a smaller wedding – because we had planned to do a really big wedding, and invite as many people as we wanted since we both come from big families. He’s into the media society as well.

Because of the COVID S.O.Ps we had to cut down the numbers; we had originally planned for 1000 guests but now we had to look and squint to try and see if we could find a place that could accommodate 100 people. We had a 2-week-gap between the kwanjula and the wedding. The wedding was on the 24th of September and the kwanjula was on the 12th of September. For both events God came through!

During a season when you think people don’t have money, they haven’t been working, that’s when God showed up and said I shall supply. People gave, people contributed and showed us love, and for that we are grateful. I can’t put to words, but it has been God. Even 4 days to the wedding, we had a very big amount of money pending, but trust me by the wedding day, everything had been cleared. We didn’t have any debt. If that’s not God then we don’t know what else it is!!

The wedding day

God enabled us to have service providers who were amazing, and interestingly enough, all of them said they were praying for us, so He led us. The occasion was so beautiful. It turned out in ways we cannot express. We had a good time, we danced, we laughed, we had people from all over the world, family members able to watch using the Youtube live. We had people here in Uganda able to watch on Salt TV and Spirit TV. Everybody who was there physically and remotely was able to enjoy the wedding, but most importantly, Wesley and I got to say “I Do.”

He’s my best friend, he is amazing; he came out of the blue! One day I didn’t think that good guys still exist because in this generation today there are so many people who pretend to be good, both female and male. Having him in my life is a special gift that I treasure and thank God for every day. We don’t only focus on our wedding but on the marriage. We pray that our marriage will be fruitful and exemplary to each and every person, in Uganda, and in the world! That’s how the day went, and I could go on and on giving details about everything, but that would be a really really long story!