Couple weds at IKEA photo department in the exact spot they met eight years ago



A couple who met in an IKEA store eight years ago have gone back to the scene of their original encounter to get married.



Specifically, near the picture frames.



Bride Shirley Stewart and groom Berkeley ‘Rashid’ Smith vowed after getting together that, should they ever get married, they would do so in the exact place they met. On June 8, they did just that at the Elizabeth, New Jersey store.

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'By the power vested in me by the store of IKEA': On Saturday, a New Jersey couple got married in the exact spot they met in a Newark IKEA--in the photo department

‘They found love in the photo department,’ said Audrey Rice of St. Paul’s Calvary Church of God, who gave the blessing at the ceremony.



But it wasn’t quite so simple. Stewart had the help of then 14-year-old daughter Jashirele. She had been suspended from school that day and was running errands with her mom when they first bumped into Smith.

‘I told my mom, “Oh, he’s cute,”’ Jashirele Stewart told the New Jersey Star-Ledger .



So they tailed the stranger through the Swedish superstore, trying to ascertain Smith’s relationship status, until the intrepid teen decided to break the ice and introduce herself. She walked right up to him and asked for his phone number.

But was it an IKEA broom?: Seen here jumping the broom, Shirley Stewart and Berkeley ¿Rashid¿ Smith met in the photo department 8 years ago while Stewart was shopping with then 14-year-old daughter Jashirele

Destination wedding? The couple's family arrive to the ceremony June 8. It was a first for the Elizabeth, New Jersey store, but not the first IKEA wedding. Others have happened in nearby Paramus and around the world

‘I panicked,’ Stewart recalled. But she needn’t have, because it is now clear there was chemistry between the her and Smith.



Fast forward to a few weeks ago and Smith was undertaking his own stakeout of the store, but for the precise spot where it all began. The trail ended in the photo department, where Smith proclaimed, ‘This is the spot where we met.’



On Saturday, Smith and Rice, who have seven children between them, were finally wed in front of friends and family.



And even staff members. IKEA spokesperson Olivia Johnson attended the wedding on her day off and even brought her own family members as guests.

'So excited': Even an IKEA spokeswoman, Olivia Johnson, showed up on her day off with her own family in tow

‘We were here for you when you met,’ Johnson told the couple. ‘So we wanted to be here for you when you exchanged your vows.’



According to Johnson, this was the store’s first wedding, but not the first ever at an IKEA. Multiple ceremonies have taken place in the IKEA store in the Paramus, New Jersey store not far away.



And other IKEA marriages have happened around the world. Just this year, an Australian location played host to a decidedly more lavish ceremony, the country’s first in an IKEA.



Stewart and Smith finished things off, before a continuance of the vows was held at the home of Smith’s grandmother—who is recovering from surgery and couldn’t make it to the store—by jumping the broom.



It is unclear, however, if the broom was IKEA brand.







