Soca blasted from towering speakers. Bass rattled the pavement as thousands of people whined their waists to the pulsating rhythm. Masqueraders shimmered in jewels, feathers and a rainbow of colour, moving through the August heat.
Somehow, in a crowd of thousands, Renee and Jandyr “Jay” Martins found each other.
It was near the end of the 2013 Toronto Caribbean Carnival parade. Renee had spent the day playing mas with her three cousins. Jay was there with friends, donning a Saldenah costume for the first time.
As the final floats rolled past, they both began making their way off the route — separately. They stumbled into each other, locked eyes and stopped.
“The last thing on my mind was meeting a wife,” Jay said.
Renee was interested, but not ready to let a little eye contact make it easy for Jay. She had three qualifying questions for men she met: Where did he live? How old was he? Did he have children?
Jay passed.
He gave her his number and, before he was far enough to lose sight of her, his phone lit up.
They texted throughout the night, then met the following morning for coffee and to walk Jay’s dog — what he now calls their “very soft opening date.”
That night, they planned to attend a party called Big People Fête. Renee warned him she would not be checking her phone.
“If I see you, then I see you,” she told him.
And she did. Without making plans, they found each other near the end of the night — a common theme for them.
Carnival kept bringing them together
After that first weekend, they returned to their separate lives, occasionally losing touch and not always certain they were on the same page.
But each time their connection appeared ready to fizzle, another Carnival placed them in each other’s path.
That October, they separately travelled to Miami Carnival, where they reconnected. Four months later, they unknowingly booked trips to Trinidad and Tobago for Carnival. After Jay’s flight was delayed several times, he ended up on Renee’s plane, sending mini bottles of liquor to her and her friends from his seat.
Once in Trinidad, they kept crossing paths — at fêtes, on the road and, by chance, on a post-Carnival trip to Tobago they had each booked independently. Even the flight home assigned them aisle seats beside each other.
“I was like, ‘You told the stewardess. You asked them to do this,’” Renee recalled.
Looking back, they realized their paths had crossed long before they officially met. Three years earlier, both had attended a 2010 World Cup game celebration on College Street. When they later searched through old photographs from that day, they found Renee being interviewed with Jay standing unnoticed in the background.
By the 2014 Toronto Carnival parade, their relationship had rapidly progressed. They played mas separately, but Jay spent the day carrying a bag filled with Renee’s favourite treats and a Red Bull, waiting to find her somewhere along the route.
As usual, they did.
A love rooted in Carnival
For Renee, whose parents came from Trinidad, Carnival had always been more than a party. It’s a family tradition. She attended as a child, played kiddies mas and went on to model for different bands.
The parade was the payoff: burning fingers, lost sleep and months of hard work transformed into glamorous feathers, colour and dancing down the road.
With Jay, she never felt she had to choose between her relationship and that part of her identity.
“He was the first person I felt like I could be genuinely myself with,” she said. “I could love my culture and be at every fête and every band launch. I didn’t have to hide it.”
In 2015, they travelled to Trinidad Carnival as an official couple. Jay joked that if they could survive the trip together, he would marry her.
Two years later, he did.
Rather than a traditional wedding, they opted for a three-day celebration: city hall and Soca or Die on Aug. 3, playing mas with their wedding party on Aug. 5 and an outdoor reception at The Carvers Cottage that turned into a day fête filled with music, church pews, an ice cream truck and dancing.
“We just threw a party for our wedding,” Jay said. “That was kind of our vibe.”
A new generation on the road
Today, Carnival remains woven through the Martins family life. Their seven-year-old daughter, Nova, plays kiddies mas and models for Toronto Revellers, carrying forward the tradition Renee grew up with.
Jay, who left a career in finance, now runs his own company, Mixed Company Media, as a filmmaker and photographer. Renee, who works in marketing, helps create content in her spare time that showcases Carnival as more than a party — highlighting how it’s rooted in community.
For Renee, watching Nova embrace Carnival alongside a new generation of cousins feels like the story coming full circle.
“It feels nice to pass the torch,” she said.
Looking back on the chance encounters, shared adventures and life they have built since that first Carnival, Jay doesn’t see any of it as coincidence.
“Fate brought us together,” Jay said. “Carnival made us whole.”
