Tutu & Gilbert

Wagner Cove, Central Park  ·  Palma, West Village  ·  18 June 2026

Some weddings are built for crowds. Tutu and Gilbert’s was built for witnesses, and by the end of the day it seemed half of Central Park had signed up for the job.

It was their first time in New York City. Two Kenyan men, a small circle of the people who love them most, and a June morning in the most famous park in the world, celebrating out loud a love they have never been free to celebrate that way at home.

THE MORNING

The day began early at the Edison Hotel in Midtown, just the two of them on a quiet morning before the city had fully woken. Then Okongo and Sean arrived, and the getting-ready began.

Someone was missing, and she made sure she was there anyway. Tutu’s sister Wambui could not join them in New York, but she had sent letters, written to the two of them, and jewellery for the day. They opened her letters that morning and wore what she had given them. It was the perfect jewellery for the occasion, because it meant Wambui walked into the day with them.

As soon as they were ready, Gilbert’s aunty Leah and uncle Jeff insisted on coming upstairs to see them and to bless them before they left. They ran slightly late. It did not matter.

Downstairs, the rest of the wedding party was waiting. Cabs took them all to the park entrance at 72nd Street, and from there they walked to the cove, holding hands, with Mugure joining them along the way. Two men sharing their love out in the open, almost in disbelief that they could.

THE COVE

They were married at about half past ten in the morning at Wagner Cove, a rustic timber shelter tucked below the path on the west side of the Lake, with a small landing at the water’s edge and trees leaning in on all sides. Most people walk past it without knowing it is there. For a ceremony this intimate it was perfect: close enough to hear the city, far enough to forget it.

The sky had decided to be kind. The day was warm and softly overcast, the kind of even, silvery light photographers pray for. There were no harsh shadows, no squinting and no chasing the sun, just gentle light on the water and on two faces that could not stop smiling.

Gathered at the cove were Tina, Tutu’s sister; Mugure, his close friend; Gilbert’s aunty Leah and uncle Jeff; Okongo, Gilbert’s best friend; and Rev. Shawn, who married them, with his wife Mariah beside him. Sean was behind the camera.

THE PROMISES

Their vows were as different as the two of them, and they met in the same place. Gilbert, the planner, reminded everyone that Tutu had needed seven months to be sure, and announced that the trial period was over. What Tutu was receiving now was “a lifetime subscription, fully paid, non-refundable, with no cancellation clause.” Then, the lawyer in him unable to resist: “You should have read the fine print.”

Tutu, who had been “pursued and refused,” admitted to “eventually losing the battle, quite convincingly, I might add, as you all can see,” and called them “a choir of two.” He closed with the line that carried the morning: “And so now, I can call myself beloved. I can feel myself beloved.”

Written separately, both sets of vows arrived at the same word for the other: home.

A WALK THROUGH THE PARK

Then, instead of hurrying away, the wedding party walked. From Wagner Cove they followed the paths along the Lake toward Bow Bridge, stopping again and again for photographs: under the trees, by the water, on the winding paths in between.

On the way to Bow Bridge they met a group of schoolchildren out with their teachers. The children saw two grooms and did not hesitate. They cheered. They clapped. They lined the path and made a guard of honour of it, and their teachers joined in. It was entirely unplanned and entirely perfect.

It kept happening all the way through the park. Strangers stopped to call out congratulations. People smiled, waved, wished them well. For two men from a country where a moment like this could never happen in public, it was surreal: a whole city of passers-by treating their love as the most natural thing in the world, because it is.

They crossed Bow Bridge with the Lake spread out on either side, then climbed to Bethesda Terrace, with its carved stone staircases, its arcade and its view down to the water. The last photographs were taken at Bethesda Fountain, beneath the Angel of the Waters, the statue that has stood over so many New York celebrations. It was a fitting place to end a morning that felt, all the way through, like a blessing.

LUNCH AT PALMA

From the park the party made its way downtown to Palma on Cornelia Street in the West Village, a beautiful Italian restaurant that has been cooking the family way since 2001. Lunch was in the kitchen of Palma’s Carriage House, a two-hundred-year-old building behind the restaurant with exposed wooden beams. It was small, intimate and beautiful, with flowers in full bloom all around the room and the warmest of hostesses looking after them. There was a quiet rightness to it. Their love story began with Gilbert pulling Tutu into an unplanned dance in a kitchen, and here was their wedding, gathered around another one.

HOME

It was a day many couples can take for granted, and one Tutu and Gilbert had never been able to have at home: to be married in the open, to walk together through a crowded park, and to be cheered.

Congratulations, Tutu and Gilbert.

Ceremony: Wagner Cove, Central Park, New York City  ·  Officiant: Rev. Shawn  ·  Lunch: Palma, 28 Cornelia