Taylor Shelby Turkmen and Ryan Patrick Milligan aren’t sure how many guests attended their wedding on May 2 in New Orleans, but it was way more than they expected.
“My guess is like, 500 to 1,000,” Ms. Turkmen said. “People swarmed.”
Mr. Milligan thinks Ms. Turkmen’s allure might have affected the head count. “Taylor’s probably the prettiest bride anybody’s ever seen,” he said.
A likelier cause was happenstance. A full day of live music lay ahead at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Attendees caught off guard by a sudden rainfall were looking for a way to stay dry, so they stuck around the tent or ducked in.
Ms. Turkmen, 32, and Mr. Milligan, 42, were married under the Gospel Tent at the annual festival, a local tradition. Minutes after the Shades of Praise New Orleans Interracial Gospel Choir finished its set, the couple climbed onstage amid an eight-minute intermission — she in a strapless linen maxi dress and a short veil, he in shorts and a linen button down. Both were well-versed in the logistics of festivals — Ms. Turkmen attended her first Jazz Fest at age 5. Marrying amid throngs of revelers felt natural to both.
Ms. Turkmen and Mr. Milligan met in the fall of 2017, when both worked at the Republic National Distributing Company, a wine and spirits distributor with an office in New Orleans. Mr. Milligan, then a district sales manager, had hired Ms. Turkmen as a sales rep. They struck up a friendship born of commiseration: Mr. Milligan, a father of three, was going through a divorce. Ms. Turkmen and a boyfriend had recently broken up.
“Taylor was a huge supporter,” Mr. Milligan said. “She did a great job of trying to help me get out of my funk.” For Ms. Turkmen, “it was a situation where it was someone to talk to that wasn’t your usual friends,” she said.
The friendship held for more than a year. Then, in December 2018, Ms. Turkmen won a football pool with a sizable jackpot after sharing her team picks with Mr. Milligan. To celebrate, “I said, come have a beer with me,” she said. Luck was on their side, she figured, so she asked him to meet at a local casino. The conversation turned playful, then flirtatious. “I thought, ‘Oh, this could be something different,’” Ms. Turkmen said.
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When they went on a first date two weeks later, there was no hand-wringing over personal and professional boundaries. Mr. Milligan had been promoted in August 2018 to account executive in Republic National’s national division, where he still works as an accounts manager. Ms. Turkmen no longer reported to him.
Mardi Gras, like Jazz Fest, is an important tradition for both. Ms. Turkmen, who grew up in Gretna, a suburb east of New Orleans, started attending with her parents as a preschooler. Love of family and the city kept her close through college at the University of New Orleans, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies. She is now a business development manager at American Environmental and Industrial Services, a local company.
Mr. Milligan grew up just west of the city in Metairie and holds a bachelor’s degree in general studies from Southeastern Louisiana University. His parents also brought him to his first Mardi Gras as a child.
Now, both ride in “krewes,” the private social groups that put on parades and orchestrate parties for Mardi Gras.
At 2019’s installment, in February, love followed them into the French Quarter. “Taylor and I rode in a parade together, and then I had taken the kids to a parade with their mom,” said Mr. Milligan, whose divorce was final in August of that year. The brief separation from Ms. Turkmen left both bereft. “As I left Taylor, I realized in that moment that I wished she could be with me. I missed her.”
In August 2021, the couple bought a house in Metairie. That marked a corner turned on what Mr. Milligan said was “round two of life.” Covid and divorce had complicated his finances. “I had to save money to either purchase a house or a ring,” he said. Once the house was secured, the ring followed. He proposed in July 2023, during a vacation in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.
Before they decided on a Jazz Fest wedding, the couple kicked around some other ideas, Ms. Turkmen said. But “we always tell people that aren’t from New Orleans, if there’s a time to visit, it’s during Jazz Fest,” Mr. Milligan said. Ms. Turkmen said she had long been a fan of the “church vibes” under the gospel tent.
The rain that started falling and the crowds that started gathering before they were pronounced married by their friend Jade Duplessis, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church for the occasion, raised the joy level for both.
“The only time it rained was when we were onstage,” Ms. Turkmen said. “Then we kissed the crowd hooted and hollered and showed us all their positive energy. And then the sun came out.” A large reception at Antoine’s Restaurant in New Orleans followed, the next day.
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