Adelaide Wisdom met Eddie Benjamin her debut year. She finished college at Hollins University in Virginia, then graduated law school at Tulane University, where she participated in Law Review. After graduation, she got a job at Eddie’s law firm, Wisdom, Stone, Pigman and Benjamin. Adelaide’s uncle was Judge John Minor Wisdom, so there might’ve been a perception that she got the job because of him, but she finished law school at the top of her class.
Eddie decided to work her very hard, and they worked on many cases together wherein she proved to be brilliant.
They fell madly in love. They were engaged in January 1957 and were married May 11, 1957.
Adelaide left all of the details of the wedding to her mother, Mary Freeman Wisdom. She worked with Kraak’s Florist, who created the flowers for the church and the reception, including gardenias, plalenopsis orchids, lilies of the valley, Smilax and ivy. Madame Besserat fashioned Adelaide’s dress; the bridesmaids’ dresses came from Town & Country.
The wedding was held at 8 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, followed by a beautiful reception at the Wisdom Home on Palmer Avenue, where guests were entertained in the garden as well as inside. The quatrefoil cake by Swiss Bakery was decorated with lilies of the valley, gardenias and sugar flowers.
After the reception, Eddie and Adelaide spent their honeymoon at Yosemite National Park. They visited Eddie’s brother in Oregon and then left for San Francisco. Adelaide had always wanted to go to Hollywood so she called her best friend, Virginia Giannini, whose grandfather founded Bank of America. Virginia sent a car and driver that took them on a tour of Hollywood that they would never forget, complete with visits to movie sets and lavish dinners at chic restaurants.