Weddings aren’t just weddings anymore.
Nowadays everyone tries to have some sort of special entertainment at their wedding or something that will make it stand out as a memorable event.
So, Darin Mahlke wanted to make sure to do something extremely special for his wife Chelsey on their wedding day to let her know just how much he loves her.
Posted by Darin Mahlke onTuesday, November 1, 2016
He has always been touched by how much she cherishes her family, so he knew he wanted to incorporate her family into his special wedding surprise.
You see Chelsey is basically her family’s archivist.
She’s collected family photos, videos, and other tokens of her family’s history so they can be preserved and kept safe.
Posted by Darin Mahlke onThursday, March 24, 2016
“One of the things I fell in love with about her is she’s sentimental and extremely family-oriented, she’s almost like the family historian and so she’s the one with all of the pictures and home videos,” Darin said, according to TODAY.
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So, Darin figured he’d just dip into Chelsey’s archives and see if there was anything in there that he could use at his wedding reception.
He found exactly what he was looking for to serve as a “something borrowed.”
It was a recording from 1947 of Chelsey’s grandmother singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that she recorded herself when she was just 13.
Chelsey was extremely close to her grandmother who passed away from ALS in 2005.
Darin knew Chelsey would be missing grandma a lot on their wedding day.
This was the perfect way to help Chelsey feel grandma’s presence on their special day. Chelsey had actually played the song for Darin when they were first dating.
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She never dreamed that he would have remembered it.
“That was at least a couple of years before we even got engaged. It was longtime planning,” Chelsey said.
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Now Darin just had to figure out how he was going to incorporate the song.
He figured he would pull the old switcheroo and switch out the song for their first dance, which was supposed to be Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You,” for grandma’s song.
Chelsey had “no idea what was going on” when it was time for their big dance.
Darin grabbed the microphone during the reception and announced that he was switching up their wedding dance song at the last minute.
“Honey, I’m sorry, there’s a better song,” he told her. “It’s sung by someone who would have loved to be here today. And so this way, she can.”
As soon as Chelsey heard the sound of her grandma’s voice she immediately started to tear up.
She and her husband held each other close and danced forehead to forehead and swayed back and forth.
“I knew it had to be my grandma because that was what was most important to me and what I missed most that day,” Chelsey said. “As soon as I actually heard her voice, it was like everyone in that entire room except for Darin and my grandma disappeared because it was like she was there with us.”
The couple ended up posting a video of their wedding’s special moment online where it ended up going viral.
Darin said he thinks the video went viral because people were looking for uplifting content during the quarantine.
“It made a difference in our world, just like everyone else being on lockdown, life had come to a halt,” Darin said. “It wasn’t cartwheels and celebrations for the past few months. And reading through some of the comments, it was uplifting.”
Check out the video below.
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