Couple Shocked After Learning Wedding Officiant Became New Pope

When selecting an officiant for your wedding ceremony, you may look to a religious leader, close friend, or family member to oversee your nuptials. In addition to guiding you and your partner through your vows, this person will also help ensure your marriage license is properly signed and returned to the clerk’s office following your celebration. As a result, there’s no denying the importance of this figure on your big day. Yet, for one Illinois-based couple, the officiant for their 2014 wedding recently became an even more significant and memorable part of their milestone event, as he was recently chosen to be the new pope.

On July 19, 2014, Heather Schmit-Jaroch and Dominic Jaroch were married by Pope Leo XIV at St. Rita of Cascia Shrine Chapel in Chicago. The couple, who knew the pontiff as “Father Bob,” learned that their former wedding officiant had become the new head of the Catholic Church while on a camping trip. Schmit-Jaroch’s sister called her to tell her the shocking news. “I said, ‘Well, it’s probably just my sister telling me we got a new pope, and I was like, ‘I’ll find out later once I get my cup of coffee made,’” she told People. “And then my phone kept on ringing and ringing, so I checked to make sure nothing’s wrong. And she’s like, ‘We got a pope! And it’s Father Bob!” The former bride said she and her husband immediately started crying upon hearing the news. 

The new pope reportedly presided over the ceremony as a favor to the bride’s father, Ed Schmit, flying in from Peru for the occasion. “At the time, we didn’t know he was coming,” Schmit-Jaroch told People. “My dad was saying he had a surprise for me, and it was about who was going to marry us.” She added that he and the pope were close. While Schmit-Jaroch expressed her excitement over the conclave’s pick, she said she wishes she could share the moment with her father, who died in 2020. “Every time we talk about it, we just cry,” she told the magazine. “It’s like happy tears, you know? I wish my dad was here to see it, because that was one of his good friends.”

Her husband was just as shocked as she was. “I mean, what are the odds?,” he told People. “It’s like one in a million. I can say that I got married by the pope!” While the couple is still in awe that Pope Leo XIV helped them tie the knot, Jaroch said his one regret is that his wedding officiant didn’t stick around for the post-ceremony celebrations. “Maybe I could’ve had a couple cocktails with the pope,” he told the magazine.