People (October 11, 1999)

So Nice, They Wed Twice

After a secret Caribbean wedding, Vanessa Williams and basketball´s Rick Fox say ´I do´ for family and friends

By the time Vanessa Williams and Rick Fox married in a Manhattan church Sept.26, they were already playing a little game of I've Got a Secret. Which is to say that the 36-year-old singer-actress and the Los Angeles Lakers forward, 30, had already been wed for weeks. The first ceremony took place on an undisclosed Caribbean island this summer-but just about nobody knew. Last week's event was almost as private, with about 100 or so friends and family members present as Thomas Morrette, a deacon at Williams's Catholic church in sub-urban Westchester County, joined the couple as husband and wife... again.

"Vanessa was radiant," says Morrette. "I leaned over and told her, 'You're glowing.' And she said, 'I know. I am."' Williams, wearing a Vera Wang gown with a taupe satin bodice and a full tulle skirt, was not alone in her emotions. Rick glowed too, Morrette says, and both "got teary-eyed."

Fox's sisters Jeanene and Sarah served as bridesmaids. Williams's two daughters from a previous marriage to Ramon Hervey-Melanie, 12, and Jillian, 10-served as flower girls, while her son Devin, 6, and Fox's son from a previous relationship, Kyle, 6 on Oct.13, acted as ring bearers. Afterward, the couple held a reception at the St. Regis Hotel, where guests dined on sea bass and Bahamian conch salad and a calypso band played. "Vanessa and Rick danced," says Morrette, "and the kids were running around, having a ball."

In the past year newspaper gossip columns mentioned sightings of the couple dining in Boston (where Fox once played for the Celtics) and New York City. In February, Fox told PEOPLE he considered Williams, a former Miss America, "a loving mother and a very strong woman," adding "That's what I find attractive about her: the ability to balance all of that and still be a megacelebrity."

The couple plan to be bicoastal for the immediate future-and won't be keeping their careers a secret. He has just signed a new six-year contract with the Lakers, and she may star on the Manhattan stage.