Love story has happy ending with Valley Stream wedding

Pearline Barrow and Randolph Best were married at Charles J. Monica Senior Village in Valley Stream on July 17. The lovebirds were ready to take the plunge and dive into a new life as bright as the morning sunshine.

“It was a very exciting event,” Monica Village Director Lucille Moran said of the first wedding there. “Everyone looked beautiful. It was wonderful and the tenants thoroughly enjoyed it.”

The love affair between Barrow, 55 and Best, 60, began in Barbados in the late 1960s. The couple met in their youth and fell in love. When Barrow came to the U.S. in the early 1970s, the couple had already produced a child — a daughter.

And like a love story in a Hollywood movie, the two went their separate ways. Barrow went to Boston, while Best settled in Canada in 1975. Best came to America in 1989, but by that time the two had lost contact and married other people. Little did they know that fate would step in with a new plan.

“Randolph was asking for me for many years,” Barrow recounted. “We searched for each other, but could not find each other. Then Randolph went back to [Barbados] in 2007 to retrace his steps. He found one of my friends, Peggy, and gave his number to her. I then got his number from Peggy and called him.”

The couple had a long-awaited reunion in March 2007. “The story is real life,” Best said. “It is such a thing that I cannot even put in words.”

And the latest chapter in their story culminated in their wedding ceremony. “It was a beautiful wedding,” Barrow said. “I love my husband and this day.”

Barrow chose her daughters as her bridesmaids and her granddaughter as a flower girl. Her son even had the honor of being her new husband’s best man.

The ceremony required a lot of preparations, and the bride and groom did most of the planning. According to Moran, the couple did the decorations themselves.

“The family had the wedding catered,” Moran said. “Pearline and Randolph did some cooking and made Caribbean food from Barbados. They did most of the planning. They made a floral archway and had white carpet.”

Many Monica Village residents attended the festive occasion. “The tenants got punch and cake,” Moran said. “Pearline invited members of her crochet club and other members she was close to. The whole building got to hear the music because the doors were open.”

Best was very happy about how all the preparations came together to produce a beautiful finished product. “I think it was great,” he said. “It was marvelous. We put a lot of work into it. It came out just how we planned.”

After the nuptials, the couple traveled to Boston for a few days. But Barrow said she will never forget their wedding day, and added that the senior citizen complex was a perfect venue. “I’d rather have the wedding here because the residents are very nice to me,” Barrow said. “I love all of them. They were happy for me. I did not want to forget the residents. Mrs. Moran was very nice to let me have it here.”

“I thank God that we got back together,” Best said. “Everything is coming back like we never [were] apart.”