This story is about romance, challenges, adventures, a wedding, two people who were meant to find each other, and how your home is often the perfect place to seal your love.
Henda Salmeron is, quite simply, a force of nature.
While most of us know her as an award-winning broker with Dave Perry Miller, that’s just one of her accomplishments. She’s a mother, a serial entrepreneur, a global ultra-endurance race competitor, a published author, and a breast cancer survivor who became, in her words, an accidental lobbyist. This led to the passing of one of the most critical healthcare bills in America in 2011, known as, Henda’s Law, Texas HB-2102.
Some men might find this list of accomplishments a bit intimidating. Not Christopher Randolph. He’s a pretty accomplished fellow in his own right. While he’ll tell you he’s primarily a sports agent, he’s also a serial entrepreneur and was ready for act two in the romance department.
So was Henda.
“I think we were both looking for a life partner,” Christopher said. “I’d been on a dating app and decided to do everything opposite what I had done in the past, so I started talking to Henda for the first two weeks before going out with her. I asked how I’d get to know more, and her response was to read her book! “
Christopher sped through the book’s first part that night and called Henda back the next day. “If you read about someone, who has put themselves out there, you know you can tell them anything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Some of those calls in the first two weeks were over eight hours long. They knew everything about each by the time they met in person.
After a date at Terrillis, there was the first dinner at Henda’s.
“I told him to bring me the ingredients of what you like to eat, and I’ll cook it,” Henda said. “He arrived with fourteen grocery bags because he’d just finished a sleep study. He had no idea what he wanted to eat, so he bought everything. I didn’t run out of food for a month!”
With two entrepreneurs, the first big adventure was centered around business.
“I asked him how to use my brand and name and work in breast cancer to build more of a platform for breast cancer and awareness,” Henda said.
After four and a half years of adventures, Christopher popped the question just before Valentine’s Day of 2020, two days before she left for a seven-day endurance race in Africa.”I think he wanted to claim me before I went off to the jungle! He used silicon rings from REI, and I loved that.
Then Covid happened.
“In 2021, we all started trying to dig out and figure out how, what, why, and when we could get married, “Henda said. “In May, my kids were graduating, and it’s a powerful moment when your kids are finished with school. We were coming out of Covid, and April 30 was the closest day to our first in-person date. I was not getting married in the summer, so it seemed good timing.”
Then the reality of having a wedding in Dallas sunk in. Henda toured every wedding venue in Dallas. “I realized you must go broke to throw a wedding, and none of the venues resonated with me. Nothing was personal enough.”
“We are in our 50s,” Christopher said. “You don’t spend 50,000 to 100,000 on a wedding. We not only wanted to save a fortune, but we also wanted to control the narrative and the vision. You can’t do that at a venue.”
Henda grew up in South Africa, which would have been her perfect wedding location, but it was impossible. She thought, why not bring South Africa to her backyard and get married there?
“Many years ago, my first listing was in the neighborhood I live in now,” Henda said. “My client moved to Miami and became one of the top wedding designers in the country. I had not spoken to him in twenty years but called him out of desperation. His advice was to look into structured tents, and, of course, you have tents at the top luxury safari lodges in South Africa. It just clicked. My next call was to George Bass. I told him I needed to create an African safari in the backyard. He said his company would do the design for us as a wedding gift!”
Henda met with Shane Burroughs, who owns RS Burroughs Design Works and creates one-of-a-kind arrangements for George’s stagings.
“She said, think Abercrombie and Fitch luxury safari under the Dallas sky,” Shane said. “Henda is a talented photographer, and her photographs of South Africa were the inspiration. Every table was to be different and eclectic, and she trusted me to execute her vision. I went through the George Bass Stage and Design warehouse a month ahead of time and tagged things that would be great for the evening, like rich antique rugs and hides, and combined them with antiques from her house and things she had collected on her world travels. We used Christopher’s mother’s crystal. Everything had sentimental value. She wanted people to feel like they were in her home, but in South Africa.”
Henda even found African food and musicians. “I could not get married without African drums. Drumming is part of the country’s heartbeat,” she said. “It’s important to South African history.”
Henda’s drummers included the Bandan Doro African Drum and Dance Ensemble and Dandy The Queen, who she found through her Lyft driver. She located a chef in Flower Mound who was an expert at South African cuisine but had never catered and convinced her to cater. Because it’s Texas and Christopher was raised here, barbecue from Soulman’s Bar-B-Que was a must.
“A second marriage allows a lot of freedom to do it your way and not be restrained by how it’s supposed to be, “Henda said. “You don’t have to ask permission, you don’t have to spend a fortune, and you can make it your own.”
Cheers Henda and Christopher. We await tales of your next adventure!
