The announcement of the couple's engagement in 1953 produced a firestorm of comment in Britain and around the world; and when Peggy Cripps and Joe Appiah were married at St John's Wood Church, north London, in June 1953, the occasion was front-page news in Britain, in Ghana, and many other countries and the event was one of the social events of the year.George Padmore, the West Indian Pan-Africanist was best man, deputising for Kwame Nkrumah, who was too busy as the new leader of Government Business to attend himself. Hugh Gaitskell, Stafford's successor as Chancellor was there, as were Michael Foot, future leader of the Labour party, Aneurin Bevan, Lady Quist, the wife of the Speaker of the Gold Coast Assembly, and Krishna Menon, India's ambassador to the United Nations. A Jamaican newspaper commented that there were "top-hatted and frock-coated British aristocrats... ex-Cabinet Ministers... as well as several Tory and Socialist members of Parliament." The real attraction, however, was the kente cloth worn not only by the bridegroom but by many of his relatives and friends. Coverage in newspapers around the world ranged from the hostile to sceptical to admiring.