Marjorie Anella McFarlane and Albert Edward Lucas were married on Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 4 p.m. in the Episcopal Church of St. Mary’s‑in-the-Highlands in Cold Spring, New York. The Reverend Father Shane Scott-Hamblen, Rector, an Episcopalian Priest, performed the ceremony.
Ms. McFarlane, 35, is a senior vice president at Strategic Legal Solutions, an employment agency in New York City for lawyers and other professionals. She graduated from Chatham University, in Pittsburgh, Penn.
She is the daughter of Deloris E. McFarlane and Legent R. McFarlane of St. James, Jamaica West Indies who currently reside in Richmond Hill, New York. The bride’s father is a building contractor for New York City Department of Housing. Her mother is a home health care nurse for Prime Care in New York City.
Mr. Lucas, 41, is the Director of Legislative services for the Board of Aldermen in New Haven, Connecticut. The alumnus of St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut received a 2005 Seton Elm-Ivy Award and lifetime achievement award from Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.‘s New Haven chapter for his decades of service to the New Haven community as a member of the Board of Directors of Dwight Hall at Yale, the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, founder of a teen leadership program Young Voices Initiative and Commissioner of the New Haven Midnight Basketball Association.
He is a son of the late Carolyn V. Lucas and the late Albert C. Lucas, both of New York. His father retired as a bus operator for the Metropolitan Transit Authority and was a Army and Air Force veteran who served in World War II and the Korean War. The bridegroom’s mother retired as an executive assistant at the Voice of America and the United States Information Agency.
The couple were introduced in December 2006 over the phone by their mutual friend, Philadelphia Attorney Erica Bazzell-May, who met them both 19 years ago when they were seniors (Ms. McFarlane in High School, and Mr. Lucas in college). The couple haven’t stopped talking since.
Mr. Lucas proposed to Ms. McFarlane on New Year’s eve 2008 at the lighthouse at Montauk point in a blizzard with gale force winds. The bride thought that she was simply going to a holiday light show. She was initially disappointed that only the lighthouse was lit up, until she turned around and saw Mr. Lucas on one knee proposing with the unique light show of a sparkling engagement ring.