The couple has known each other through two sets of friends since 2000 but didn’t come together until a mutual friend re-connected them at a party in December 2008. They immediately started dating one week after the party and became inseparable. They realized they wanted the same things in life: marriage, children and ultimate happiness in a healthy partnership (marriage).

In March 2009 their love was tested when Kimberly went to the emergency room to check out a boil on her skin and the hospital failed to give me the correct medication/treatment. She was forced to have open heart surgery at 30 years old. She did most of her recovery at her mother’s apartment in the Bronx, New York. Damon maintained her apartment in Harlem, New York by doing laundry, cleaning and overseeing the upkeep. The couple made wedding plans to get married in August of the same year.

Kmberly bought her wedding dress — an off-white cocktail dress — off the rack a block away from the Court House (where they were married). Damon opted for a chambray pinstripe suit and off-white leather sneakers from discount retailer Daffy’s. Kimberly’s mother organized a family and friend reception at a family member’s home in Mount Vernon, New York for nearly 75 people.

Soon the newlyweds learned they were expecting! But Kimberly faced yet another surgery during her pregnancy for ovarian torison. Thankfully, the couple’s beloved son, Mandela Iyanu Marshall, was born the following year on May 11, 2010.