The Poetic Expressions Of A Man’s Love–Anderson Liburd Loves Tracey Irish

It it is traditionally accepted that the wedding is for the bride and the groom simply shows up and does what he is told. That is not the case with Anderson Liburd, better know to his friends and family as Andy.

Upon meeting him at a soiree the earlier part of this summer, his fond express of his wife had be taken aback. Not that I never heard men talk about their love for their wives. But the way in which he described their relationship was as though he was speaking of a childhood friend he had known all his life. Only to find that they met via the internet, and later found out they had mutual connections. But what impressed me the most was there was a genuine admiration he felt for his new bride. And upon seeing the wedding pictures, it clicked. Yes he loved her, and was attracted to her because she is a beautiful woman, but he genuinely liked and admired her. He spoke so highly of her that I realized there was no way I can capture the depth of this love story. So I asked him to pen his expressions of love for his woman for you our readers.

The Love Story of Boy Meets Girl And Fall Head Over Heels In Love

Social media has indeed evolved into a central meeting place where new friendships are forged, not all lasting or moreover, able to rise to the level of a lifelong commitment. I met Tracey by venturing a random ‘hi’ in her DM around eight years ago which was preceded by an inordinate amount of time spent scrolling through her photos. But I was in Antigua, a small island in the Caribbean, and she was in the United States, New York to be
exact. No amount of conversation could reduce the thousands of miles of ocean that separated us. That’s what we thought until the realization grew on us that we were destined to be a part of each other’s lives.


Antigua is the land of her birth and so she eventually visited, only now her trips were for an entirely different purpose, other than looking up old friends or getting some well needed sun while stretched out on a blanket on one of our many white sandy beaches. We fantasized about getting married right there, casually dressed and the sunset making perfect the moment we pictured in our many conversations about spending the rest of our lives together. But a pandemic changed all that as our trips to visit each other suddenly grew infrequent. Something had to give and in the midst of a terrible time across the globe, a life changing decision was made. I decided to migrate, but unknowing to her, this last trip that she was going to make to Antigua would be her most memorable, mine as well.

Location: Antigua and Barbuda-Nelson’s Dockyard National Park, Photos by Donald Watkins of Watkins Multimedia 


A surprise lunch was arranged in the National Park by a few of my friends at the quaint and historic Copper and Lumber Hotel and as the sun crept across the court yard of the hotel, I asked for her hand in marriage. Already oblivious to the events that unfolded, I made sure that the minutes to follow were captured by Watkins Media, who did not disappoint. The plans for our wedding day went into immediate effect. InTracey, I found the perfect partner to execute all the fine details.

The choice of a wedding venue was an essential to everything we had envisioned for the day. We had less than six months to devise all our plans for an intimate gathering of our friends and family, some coming from Antigua to share the moment with us. We combed online resources for anything that would meet our tastes until we came upon The Swan Club in Roslyn, Long Island. The rich and colorful gardens were clearly the result of attentive manicuring and reminded of the tropical paradise that I left behind. The nearby pond where Swans floated idly was the tranquil and picturesque addition that closed the deal.


I felt the embrace, welcome and devotion of the venue support team and their utter enthusiasm to add the remaining sparkles of magic to our day. From the limousine treatment to the first dance and every possible thing in between, our day was a
deserving culmination of a journey that kept us together through the pain and anxiety of distance. Nerves were held at bay that Saturday morning in October as a result of the good humour of my groomsmen and as I awaited eagerly to see the promised creation of my bride who assured that I would
be blown away by her hair that she would not only do herself but the other members of her bridal party.

So as my world swirled around me, my mind couldn’t help but linger on what could have been and how our lives walked a separate path until we eventually met. These were the moments that would be woven into the tapestry of our lives for times to come. Tracey and I shared the same friends and were hanging out at the same events in Antigua many years ago before she left Antigua and well before our social media interaction. It’s possible our eyes met, quite likely we stood next to each other but never once did either of us exchange a word, or if we did, it was just in mere passing and bore no lasting effect. As a matter of fact, we honestly do not remember each other from that time even when presented with irrefutable evidence that we shared the same social spaces and mutual friends.


It’s a timeless and repeated tale of ‘not the right time’ but here it is more than 20 years later and all the wiser, some of those same friends are sharing tables at our wedding recalling times past and wishing us a life of ceaseless love and togetherness. In the midst of all the emotion, we both share satisfying smiles knowing that all the frenzied planning to pull off a wedding in just around six months was paying off beautifully. The details that held our undivided attention won us praise, most of it deservingly going to my wife, and both of us couldn’t be happier.

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