Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson, an African American couple from nearby Jackson, were all set for their big wedding day on Saturday at the 150-year-old church that they have been attending regularly for months. The sanctuary of the church had been arranged, the rehearsal was set for Friday, invitations had been sent out to friends extending a "special thank you to the First Baptist Church and members".

Then, at about 5.10pm on Thursday evening Te'Andrea received a call. Some of the congregation of the church, which is largely white, had seen a group of black women setting up the sanctuary for the wedding and complained to the pastor.

"If the pastor married her, because they were black then they would vote him out," Te'Andrea was told. The wedding was off.

Wilson confronted the pastor, Stan Weatherford, and asked him what had happened. According to Wilson, he replied that he had "received all sorts of phone calls, text messages, and it was just not going to happen"