The bride wore white, the groom a dark suit. They stood at the altar of Union Baptist Church in Druid Hill and exchanged vows as their maid of honor, their ring bearer and other loved ones looked on.
Fifty years have gone by since Sadie Alston Woolford, 73, and Llewellyn Woolford, 80, were first married at the church, but on Saturday, they re-enacted their wedding day — with new touches like grown children in attendance.
"They seem just as happy as the day they were married," said Ethel Ennis, a local jazz luminary who sang "True Love" at their August 1960 wedding and again on Saturday.
Pamela Woolford, one of the couple's three children, planned the event, booking the singer, convincing an original bridesmaid living in Hollywood to return and securing anniversary salutations from President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.
Union Baptist, established in 1852 and noted for its activism in the civil rights movement, is woven into the couple's relationship.
It was the site of their first date in 1955. Sadie Alston met Llewellyn Woolford at work in a downtown law office and asked to accompany him to the church where he was Sunday school principal. He was a freshly minted lawyer from Howard University, and she was a legal secretary who had just moved to Baltimore from her family's rural home in Warren County, N.C.
On Saturday, Sadie Woolford, the more outspoken half of the couple, clutched her husband's hands as she recalled the story of their courtship. Just a teenager at the time, she asked him straight away when he might want to get married. In about five years, was his reply.
"He did not realize at the time that he'd made a marriage proposal," she said.
Five years later, they married at Union Baptist and held a reception at Woolford's parents' house in Morgan Park. The bridesmaids wore turquoise, and the bride donned a Chantilly lace gown and carried a dozen white roses.
The day was written up by the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, which also described — in unexpected detail — some of the lingerie Sadie Woolford had received at a shower and what she wore as she departed for her honeymoon in Bermuda ("a light blue silk dress, with matching hat and beige bag and shoes with multi-color trim and white gloves").
About 150 guests attended the original wedding; Saturday's ceremony was witnessed by more than 50 people, including friends from Columbia, where the Woolfords moved in 1970. The couple helped start St. John Baptist Church of Columbia about the same time, and Sadie Woolford is a pastor there.
Surveying the pews as they filled with friends and relatives just before the Saturday ceremony began, Woolford said, "It has been a dream of mine to get everybody together again."
She reminisced with bridesmaid Barbara Mealy, a Baltimore-born actress who moved to Hollywood, Calif., in 1976 and appeared in television shows such as "The Jeffersons" and "The Incredible Hulk." The women stayed in touch, but haven't visited much over the years.
Still, Sadie Woolford said of her friend: "It's as if we've never been apart."
And, my, how the ring bearer had grown.
Selwyn Ray was 3 years old when he toddled down the aisle carrying the wedding rings for his parents' friends, something he watched later on an 8 mm film his father had shot. Now 53 and a mentor and pastor, he spoke at the ceremony Saturday.
Ray didn't much remember the Woolfords' wedding, but knew this with conviction: "They're the sweetest couple I've ever met."
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