Photo by Carly Romeo & Co.
It may have taken them 20 years to get to the aisle, but newlyweds Kojo Boateng and Rhea Combs only needed a week to plan their perfect wedding day. They originally met two decades ago at an art gallery in London, where Rhea was curating an exhibition. Kojo was living in London at the time, and the two became fast friends. Eighteen years later, he moved to Washington, D.C., and met back up with Rhea. “We reconnected, and the rest is history,” Kojo says.
Prior to the big day, the couple had already been discussing the possibility of marriage, but hectic work schedules interfered with setting a date. Then, on a whim, they decided to just do it in January. With Kojo’s family in London, they weren’t looking for a large affair, just a simple wedding with close friends. Unfortunately, getting married in Washington, D.C., was nearly impossible at the time due to the government shutdown. However, the couple is good friends with Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Valerie Cassel Oliver. Kojo says Valerie suggested getting married at the VMFA, and she even obtained a license to be the couple’s wedding officiant. “We even mentioned that in our vows — that we met in an art museum and then we got married in an art museum,” Kojo says. Rhea herself is the curator of film and photography at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, so the art theme came full circle. The couple’s wedding on Jan. 21, 2019, was also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which Kojo says was more of a coincidence than a plan, but that it also made sense for them and brought more meaning to their special day. Their entire nine-person affair was planned within a week.
The VMFA’s galleries and outdoor art installations made for some striking images captured by photographer Carly Romeo. “It just was a really special day even though it was small and intimate,” Kojo says. “I feel like it was the right way to do it for us.”
