by Sean Lowe
“I guess it’s because it’s so uncommon these days,” I said. “My faith has been the center of my life for a long time, and it’s the center of her life as well, and that’s no secret. We are proud of that fact. We realize that it’s viewed as kind of being weird these days, but we are not going to shy away from it. We are unapologetic.”
It’s the first time I tried to put a period—even an exclamation mark—at the end of this conversation. This is simply how we felt we should live our lives, and we didn’t care what anyone else said or did. After I said, “We are unapologetic,” the GMA reporter moved on, which was a good thing. I was done. I wasn’t going to back down from it, but I had—finally—had enough.
I wanted Catherine to be able to sort through her feelings and beliefs without the glare of the spotlight. Sex is not a main aspect of our theology. Christianity is about God’s goodness and redemption. The desire of people in the media to focus like a laser onto one aspect was frustrating. I didn’t want to be an abstinence spokesperson, because Christianity is about so much more than that. I definitely didn’t want to push Catherine into that role. She’d changed a lot since she stepped out of the limo—and not just romantically. It was encouraging to see how Christianity had taken hold of her heart and affected all aspects of her life. I also appreciated how she read the Bible and went to church regularly—even with all the wedding details weighing heavily down on her.
Thankfully, The Bachelor provided the best wedding and event planners imaginable. Though I would’ve been just as happy to go down to the justice of the peace, I knew a big wedding ceremony was one way to commemorate the day’s significance. Catherine tried to include me in all the major decisions. She told our invaluable wedding planner, Mindy Weiss, “This is our wedding, not just my wedding.” When she wanted my opinion, I was happy to give it. But mostly, I let her have free rein.
We needed to make sure the people who would be attending in person would put us on their calendars. Instead of going with a traditional save-the-date card, we decided to show our whimsical side by using a photo of us wearing bear heads. Yes, our photographer took a picture of us wearing gigantic bear heads as we rode a tandem bike with a basket full of roses and tin cans trailing behind. None of this had any significance, other than we wanted to be goofy and original.
Our save-the-date card read:
“Lovers, friends, family and Jack Nicholson, please join Catherine Ligaya Mejia Giudici and Sean Thomas Lowe & Hologram Tupac for the wedding of the century! Our love celebration will take place on the twenty-sixth day of the first month of the two thousand and fourteenth year since we started counting time. Reception to follow, so get ready for major tomfoolery & ballyhoo.”
When our friends got that in the mail, they knew they were in for a different type of wedding.
We also needed to figure out where to have the wedding. After considering Dallas and Seattle, we decided on the Four Seasons Resort Biltmore in Santa Barbara—an amazingly beautiful resort right on the Pacific Ocean. Because Santa Barbara has year-round sunny weather, we felt it would be the best option for the outdoor wedding we envisioned. We wanted our friends and family to be surrounded by flowers and the beauty of California. The music, we learned, was going to be provided by 2CELLOS, two famous young cellists whom Elton John described as “astonishing” and “exciting.”8
Things were falling into place, but the guest list was tricky. Many people wondered whether the show asked us to invite certain people, but they didn’t. We were the ones who decided who would celebrate with us in person. Because the ceremony location didn’t have a ton of seating, we had to make some hard choices. There were people from my season of The Bachelorette whom I wanted to invite and people from The Bachelor whom Catherine wanted to include. Of course, we invited The Bachelor couples—Jason and Molly, Trista and Ryan, Desiree and Chris—as well as friends from DWTS—Andy Dick and Lisa Vanderpump, who brought her dog, Giggy. We invited friends from my hometown church—dear friends who also hosted a wedding shower for us—as well as close friends from Seattle. I laughed at the thought of the Texas evangelicals mingling with the Seattle hipsters mingling with the reality TV glitterati.
This was going to be fun.
There were major advantages to having the wedding with ABC. Catherine’s family is far-flung—they live all around the globe. When the show
graciously offered to pay for their travel, this enabled everyone to attend. Even Catherine’s dad was able to come and walk her down the aisle along with her mother. This was such an amazing development. I’d had the chance to meet him during filming of DWTS. He was in the States for a few days, so I flew out to meet him, had breakfast with him, and flew back to Los Angeles. Even though it was a short visit, I immediately loved the guy. Catherine was thrilled for him to be such a big part of the wedding, especially considering the fact that he’d lived so far away from her during her childhood. Plus, she was honored that her mom and sisters were there. Even though they had given me a hard time at the hometown visit, they were now very supportive of us. (When her mom heard I’d proposed, she called me and said, “You’ve always had my blessing!”)
Registering for gifts was a crazy experience, mainly because it seems weird to go through and tell people, “Hey, I want these plates, not those.” I guess it’s a good way to make sure you don’t end up with twenty-seven salad forks, though. It was fun thinking about setting up a home with Catherine. We registered for normal household items—dishes, silverware, pillows, and glasses—and gave people the option of donating to Micaela’s Army Foundation. I’m on the board of this organization, which honors the memory of Micaela White, who passed away from childhood leukemia, and promotes awareness of the need for childhood, adolescent, and young adult cancer research funding. I loved using our wedding to shine light on their incredible work.
Catherine asked twelve of her friends to be bridesmaids, which put me in a bind. I could only come up with nine groomsmen, and—I joked—one of them was my mailman! All kidding aside, it was wonderful to share this big day with people who had been with us through thick and thin. Here’s how we described them as our party:
The Best Man/Most Likely to End the Night Shirtless: Clay Silver
The Matron of Honor/Most Likely to Become “Cat Lady”: Crista Osher
Most Likely to Leave the Party by 10 p.m.: Brandon Higginbotham
Biggest Flirt: Monica Teal Giudici
Most Talkative: Jeremy Anderson
Biggest Bada—: India Giudici
Most Likely to Become a Billionaire: Kevin Tinkle
The Hostess with the Mostest: Shay Shull
Best Beard: Austin Eudaly
Most Likely to Shed a Tear Listening to Our Vows: Stephanie Nguyen
Tightest Game: Kyle Williams
Most Blunt: Laura Caperton
Biggest Metro: Andrew Shull
The Female MacGyver: Kristen Ramaley
Biggest Scaredy-Cat: Mark Melendez
Everyone’s Best Bud: Lesley Murphy
Best Dance Moves: Cole Reilly
Most Likely to Be Mistaken for a Mademoiselle: Corina Rochex
The Most ’Hood: Anna Micklin
Most Likely to Need Extra Pages for Her Passport: Rosa Hensley
Biggest Smile: Anna Sabey
The most delicious details, of course, were the wedding cakes. While the bride’s cake was a traditional layered cake, Charm City Cakes made my groom’s cakes look just like my dogs. Yes, I had two cakes that looked like a boxer and a chocolate lab, because Lola and Ellie have been so important to me. I thought it was a fun way to work in the dogs without having them be part of the ceremony—though it was a little weird to stick a fork in Lola and take a bite.
Catherine didn’t let me know anything about her wedding dress and made an effort not to speak about the dress in my presence. I picked out the wedding bands. During the show, I had selected a platinum engagement ring for Catherine. When it came time to pick wedding bands, we decided to do som
ething a little different. Instead of going with the platinum bands, we got unconventional rose-gold bands. Neil Lane again did an awesome job. Though mine was plain, Catherine’s had 114 round-cut small diamonds. For the wedding, Neil also let Catherine wear twenty-carat diamond earrings and a fifty-carat bracelet. He gave me platinum cufflinks—with ten carats worth of diamonds—to wear on the big day, along with four matching twenty-carat diamond shirt studs. That definitely wouldn’t have happened had we had our ceremony back home. This would mark the first time I wore diamonds and probably the last!
It seemed as though there were a million decisions to make. I felt like we’d waited forever for the big day. Then—suddenly—it was time for us to fly to Santa Barbara, check in to the Four Seasons, and do this thing.
We wanted it to be as much like a normal wedding as possible. However, there were telltale signs that this event would be different. Most weddings, for example, don’t have social media guidelines. We’d invited the whole nation to join us in this happy moment—and that meant people would tune in on television, comment about us on Facebook and Instagram, and of course, tweet about everything that happened. Bachelor Nation is the best fan base of any television franchise, and I was excited to share this moment with them. Our wedding happened to fall on the same night as the Grammys, and I wondered if Twitter might actually explode from all the excitement.
When our friends and loved ones arrived, they received a packet that included directions on exactly how to tweet. There were considerations, like hashtags (#BachelorWedding), handles (@SeanLowe09, @clmgiudici), and timing (anytime except during the ceremony itself). In normal weddings, it would be considered rude to pull out a phone and record the details for your friends. However, our guests were encouraged to share their experiences, impressions, and comments via social media. And wow—our fans, friends, and haters on Twitter obliged! People gathered for wedding watching parties, complete with cakes and flowers.
Finally, the day arrived.
I turned over in the bed, looked out the window, and saw an overcast day in always-sunny Santa Barbara. I hadn’t seen Catherine, and the idea that my life was about to change forever started weighing on me. People swirled around me—planners, photographers, friends, people with clipboards and earpieces talking about how it had started raining. Of course. This area had been in a drought for months, but there’s nothing like an outdoor wedding to bring out the rain clouds.
When former Bachelor Jason Mesnick married Molly Malaney, it began to pour about midway through Molly’s vows. The producers had given all the guests clear umbrellas, but the bride and groom got drenched. Jason and Molly handled it with good humor and laughter, and it made the event much more memorable.
I’m not sure whether the producers had learned from that experience or not, but no one seemed worried about the dark skies. Notwithstanding Jason and Molly’s damp affair, I assumed the producers had contingency plans for the possibility of a true storm. That morning, the rain was light and erratic. It was about fifty-five degrees, but that didn’t stop people from jogging along the coast and riding bikes. It hadn’t rained in so long, it seemed as if no one took the threat of rain seriously, as if the locals looked up at the skies and thought, Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Their skepticism turned out to be warranted. Nothing ever came of the ominous clouds, and whatever rain had fallen soon was soaked into the dry earth. So after my groomsmen and I went to breakfast, we went onto the front lawn of the resort and tossed the football. A couple of those guys had been on my football teams in high school and college. Throwing the football with them was just like the good old days, except this time we had an audience. Paparazzi lined the edges of the lawn, hoping to get a good shot. We had a blast, tossing the football, joking, and laughing while they took photos.
When I got back to my room, I had the gradual awareness that I was about to become a husband. All the details of the wedding—the cakes, the floral arrangements on the reception tables, the music—had been taken care of. Honestly, I didn’t care much about those things. The detail I still hadn’t been able to work out in my mind weighed heavily on me as I sat down at the desk in my room with a pen and paper.
Our vows.
Catherine and I had decided to write our own vows, so we could personalize the ceremony with our deeply felt convictions. However, every time I sat down to capture my love for her, I couldn’t quite do it. How do you convey deep feelings without sounding like a Hallmark card? Over the past few weeks, I must’ve sat down twenty times to write them, but the words never came. That morning, after breakfast and football, it all came together.
“From the moment I met you, I wanted more,” I wrote. The words poured out of me until I sat back and smiled. This is it.
The clouds meandered out of the skies by the afternoon, and everything was dry by the time guests began arriving. It was still a bit cool, so the producers distributed shawls to keep guests warm during the ceremony.
While the guests began mingling outside, we were all together getting dressed. I couldn’t help but remember all those times Chris Harrison and I were getting dressed for those infernal rose ceremonies. During filming of The Bachelor, I remember putting on my suit while trying to fight that sinking feeling in my stomach as I prepared to send someone home. Tonight, I was going to be sending someone home, all right. After this day, Catherine and I would both be going home together. The thought was almost too much to bear.
“What do you think?” I asked. I had on my tuxedo and my diamond cufflinks.
“At least the mirror didn’t break.” My friend Clay laughed.
I was ready. Almost. All my groomsmen gathered around me, laid their hands on me, and prayed. “Father God, we thank you for Sean and this day,” Andrew said. “It’s been a long time coming. We know you’ve guided his path until now. We ask you, keep your hand in their marriage from the start.”
That “long time coming” comment was true. I never moped around wishing I had a soul mate, but when I met Catherine, everything changed. I felt incomplete when I wasn’t with her, and the past fourteen months seemed to take forever.
“All right, it’s time,” Mary Kate said.
I wanted people to know this day wasn’t about me, and it wasn’t even really about Catherine. Before I went to the spot, took the arm of my mother, or went over my vows again, I pulled out my phone and sent one last tweet as the Bachelor.
“Jesus, may your name be known today.”
eighteen
BACHELOR NO MORE
When I saw Catherine at the end of the aisle, the tears began to flow. For months I’d told reporters I was probably going to be the first to cry at the wedding, and I delivered. Though I’m not an emotional person, there’s just something about Catherine. She affects me in a deep way that causes me to choke up when I speak about her. When I saw her in that gorgeous dress, I didn’t stand a chance. I know every groom is supposed to say his bride is stunning, but I couldn’t believe that gorgeous woman was about to become my wife.
At this point, I was expecting to hear the traditional wedding march. But when Catherine started walking, the cellists played their rendition of Michael Jackson’s 1982 tune “Human Nature.”
People in the audience smiled at the unconventional choice, and I was surprised too. During rehearsal, they’d played this pop song as she walked down the aisle. However, I assumed we’d have a more traditional song during the actual wedding. I guess when 2CELLOS play at your wedding, they choose the song! Thankfully, it was beautiful, both Catherine and I liked it, and we were thankful they didn’t select “Thriller.”
When Catherine finally got to the end of the aisle, she hugged her parents and turned to me.
My dad began. “I’m so excited to welcome all of you to this beautiful evening to celebrate the marriage between my son and the love of his life,” he said. “Sean and Catherine’s journey to find love with each other has been an epic fairy tale on display for the whole world to see. It all
began with a simple step from a limousine and spanned many cities, states, and countries, to a beautiful proposal in Thailand, and an elephant ride into the sunset.”
I felt my lip quiver, but I held my emotions under control. As my friends and family looked on, my dad decided to get personal.
“Sean, as far as I’m concerned, you are the best son a father could have. You have such kindness and honesty, and it’s what draws people to you. But most importantly, I have watched you live out your faith in Jesus Christ your whole life—no wavering, no exceptions. And I am so proud of you, son.”
Then he turned his attention to Catherine.
“When I look at you, I smile. You incite happiness everywhere you go. That’s what I remembered about you the first time we met you. You just giggled all the time. Sherry and I are head over heels in love with you, girl—as well as the whole family. We’re blessed that you’re a part of our lives and that we’re a part of your and your family’s lives as well.”
Since this was both a live televised event and a wedding, we had to take commercial breaks. When it came time for that, my dad asked those in attendance to silently pray. Everyone bowed their heads and the cellists played while who-knows-what was being broadcast to the at-home viewers. In person, however, it wasn’t off-putting. It was just a moment for everyone to catch their breath.
“Sean, will you take Catherine to be your wedded wife and to live according to God’s Word in the holy union of marriage? Do you promise to love, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and to forsake all others as long as you both shall live?”
“I do.”
“Catherine, I would say to you too,” he continued. “The man you love is about to become your husband. He has shown a willingness to leave his home and make a home with you. His love will be your inspiration, and your prayers will always be his strength.
