Sheila Johnson, Marrying Very Well

They have also registered for eight Metric Cream Dots salad plates, for $6.95 each. And the seven-piece, All-Clad Stainless Steel Cookware Set for $410.

Or you could stop at Williams-Sonoma and purchase, among 125 separate registry selections, a stainless-steel, Dualit Four-Slice Toaster ($319.95), a Cuisinart ice cream maker ($49.95) or a Mary Ann Cake Pan ($26).

While the couple is also accepting donations to Johnson's charity, the Sheila C. Johnson Foundation, the registry was pretty much devoted to Newman. "I love gadgets!" say the gourmet cook who also bakes and makes homemade ice cream, and who got into cooking when he got into politics. "I got so tired of going out and eating chicken dinners," he says. (In 1987, Newman became the first African American elected to the Arlington County Board since Reconstruction, a position he resigned in 1993 to accept the appointment of a judgeship that led, last year, to his becoming chief judge of the Arlington Circuit Court.)

Yet all this wedding hoopla has become overwhelming, the 55-year-old Newman said in his booming voice as he drove to the couple's rehearsal dinner on Friday. He was in charge of the 10-day honeymoon to Cabo San Lucas -- a destination that was supposed to surprise Johnson, but she discovered it written on a piece of paper recently when leafing around their desk. "I'm really looking forward to the honeymoon," Newman said, just before his cell-phone reception cut out. "To getting away."

Which is different from getting carried away, as Johnson has, by all the wedding costumery and set design. "I just want to stretch this out forever," she cooed, almost forlornly, watching Thursday as six guys with "PRODUCTION CREW" inscribed on their tees worked two tall, green cranes. They were hanging screens designed to look like an autumn forest and putting finishing touches on the multi-story white chapel whose facade was held upright with a series of wires and pulleys.

"I don't want it to be over."

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Johnson didn't meet Newman for the first time at her divorce from Robert L. Johnson in 2002. "I walked into [Newman's] chambers," she recalls, "and I'm like, 'I think I know you.' " But you can't talk to the judge. So she found herself remembering: Three decades before, she and Newman had acted in a play together, "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men."

The son of a federal government worker, Newman had grown up in Arlington. He went to Ohio University, majored in theater and went on to act in New York. After a season on the TV soap "Somerset," he was in the traveling Negro Ensemble Company show.

Just before the show arrived in Washington, one of the actresses was fired. The company held auditions here, and Johnson was cast.

Newman played the son of a bootlegger. "I played the part of a prostitute," Johnson says. "My name was Candy."

When the divorce hearing ended, she says now, "I asked if I could approach the bench." She walked up and asked Newman, "Do you remember me?"