A groom surprised his new bride by asking their wedding videographer to edit a secret clip of him requesting her late father’s blessing into their wedding video after he passed before the big day.
In the years leading up to her marriage, Chelsea Gutierrez’s father, Rolando, had been in ill health, suffering from heart failure and then, in 2023, being diagnosed with cancer.
Her parents had separated, so Chelsea, 30, from Piscataway, New Jersey, had lived with her dad for more than a decade, spending time taking walks and enjoying each other’s company.
Chelsea would also help with her father’s hospital visits, too, with her then-boyfriend, Thom Kho, also moving in to spend more time together and help with Rolando’s care.
Thom built up a close bond with Rolando, who enjoyed sharing jokes with him, and often took Rolando to hospital appointments when Chelsea and her sister weren’t available.
When Thom wanted to ask for Chelsea’s hand in marriage, he secretly recorded himself, in hospital, asking for Rolando’s blessing, and also captured Rolando seeing the ring he’d chosen for the first time.
Thom proposed in May 2025, and the couple set their wedding day for July 7, 2026.
Initially, despite his condition and treatment, it looked like Rolando would make the wedding, only for his condition to decline at the beginning of the 2026, before he passed in March, aged 82.
Going into the wedding, Chelsea wanted to honor her father on the day itself, and so the couple added sweet touches, like including Rolando’s tie he wore for Chelsea’s eight grade dinner dance.
But Thom had been thinking of surprises himself, and asked wedding videographer, RJ, of BeCool Studios, if he could add a tribute in the final wedding video.
Thom had mentioned he had clips of Rolando giving him his blessing, and the videographer asked for those to be sent across.
As they sat down on August 30 to watch the video for the first time, Chelsea was visibly emotional during the early parts of the video, which included emotional speeches from the day as the voiceover.
Then, completely unexpectedly, the clip flashed up of Thom asking Rolando for his blessing – with Chelsea, who had never seen the clip before, immediately letting out a shriek and crying even harder.
She continued to watch the video, into which RJ had woven the video of Thom showing his father-in-law the ring, too.
Speaking of the surprise, Chelsea said: “I couldn’t even process what I was seeing, because I’ve never seen those videos.
“All I knew was Thom had asked for my dad’s blessing, and I don’t even think I remember him telling me that he showed my dad the ring.
“So those videos, and seeing him and hearing his voice again, just filled my heart.
“It was happening so quickly, to the point where after the first scene of my dad, I blanked out for like two seconds and I was just, like, ‘wow, I did not expect that.’
“We had to rewatch the video again, because I needed to process everything.
“Thom then told me everything that happened leading up to the video.
“I was surprised beyond words.”
