Here comes … the Oscar winner.
Tom Hanks gave Pittsburgh bride Grace Gwaltney an epic wedding story when he stopped to congratulate her as she was on her way to her wedding last Saturday. He then posed for pictures with her and her bridesmaids.
“He was like, ‘Hey, I’m Tom Hanks. I would love to take a picture with you,'” newlyweds Gwaltney told WTAE Pittsburgh about the star, who has been in town filming. A man named Ove. “I froze immediately.”
“We all lost it,” photographer Rachel Rowland told the outlet. The bridesmaids, who had already climbed into a waiting limousine outside the Fairmont Pittsburgh hotel on their way to the ceremony, “mixed up” and Hanks “posed [for] pictures and congratulated everyone. “
Gwaltney said the whole time they were taking pictures, Hanks, who has a well-established reputation as a cute Hollywood guy, was talking in her ear.
“I thought of Toy Story“she said as Hanks expressed the character of Woody in the franchise, adding,” I’m sure many other Pittsburgh brides would love that he photographed their pictures. “
Actress singer Rita Wilson, who has been married to Hanks since 1988, was also there but tried to stay on the sidelines. She was involved in a few photos.
Gwaltney said she could not wait to tell her now-husband, Luke, about the photo bomb, but because she was on her way to their wedding ceremony, it was difficult.
But “We had a moment before the ceremony and we prayed,” she explained. “We held each other’s hands, back to back, so we could not see each other, and I was like: ‘Luke, I just met Tom Hanks! ‘”
“I had to sneak it fast,” she laughed.
That’s what photographer Rowland said Newsweek“You always have all these plans and ideas for when you meet a celebrity, and then when you do – especially the national treasure Tom Hanks – you become really porridge … We all broke down in screams,” she said of the scene .
She added that Hanks “was exactly as you would think he was, happy, funny, loud and kind.”
And then, poof, it was over. “As soon as it happened, he was gone and our day was completely over,” Rowland recalled.
Hanks happened to be acting like other brides’ “something famous” on their special day.
In 2016, he jogged past a wedding shoot in NYC’s Central Park – and stopped to take pictures with the bride and groom.
In 2021, two brides said “I do” on the Santa Monica Pier when Hanks noticed the festivities and stopped to wish them good luck.
The star also escorted a bride to her wedding ceremony in 2008 – between footage for Angels & Demons. He did it as a kind gesture because the production on the Pantheon, stopped the ceremony.
Hanks apparently enjoys weddings so much that he even responded to a bride who sent him an invitation to her wedding. The self-proclaimed “big Tom Hanks fan” received a typewritten letter and a signed photograph of him with their invitation. Although he could not attend because he was in the process of rehearsing a play, he invited them to California when it opened to see it.