A New York City couple’s wedding day at civil court was one to remember.
Chandler Dean and Carolina Treviño planned to have a courthouse wedding ceremony in Manhattan on Apr. 4, which they booked a month prior, only to learn later that that date would coincide with Donald Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.
“We kind of freaked out about that,” Dean, a 27-year-old comedian and speech writer, told Today. “But mostly, we thought it was funny and only had a small percentage of concern about safety or chaos.”
Dean made fun of the chance occurrence on TikTok, writing “My fiancée and I picked quite the day to get married at the Manhattan courts,” as he compared an article with the time and date of Trump’s hearing at 2:15 p.m. with the time and date for his civil ceremony, which was set an hour later at 3:15 p.m. local time.
He told that he had checked Google Maps to see how close the two locations would be and found they “were practically on the same spot, about a minute walk.”
This prompted him and his fiancée to arrive 45 minutes early to the ceremony just in case they experienced some difficulties making it through protestors and other crowds gathered at the Manhattan Courts to see Trump’s indictment, in which he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts.
“As we were walking toward our destination, we just saw more and more throngs of people,” Dean said. “But for the most part, maybe in part because there was such a balance of protesters and counter protesters, there wasn’t one single identifiable mood. It just sort of averaged out to people lookie-looking at what was happening.”
However, they weren’t the only couple getting married at the courthouse that had to deal with the same circumstances.
“There was something really heartwarming about seeing every other couple who were in the same position that we were,” Dean told , adding that he and his bride received several “congratulations” from New Yorkers around the courthouses. “Amid the chaos, it did feel like a really wholesome place where everybody was supportive and kind.”
He posted a follow-up TikTok sharing a peek at how the ceremony went, and highlighted a tweet that featured a protester yelling at the couples in front of the courthouse that read, “One of the worst days in history to have a courthouse wedding.”
“And while that is extremely funny and I did retweet it for that reason, I have to ultimately disagree,” Dean said in the video. “The sun was shining, friends were celebrating, and as strange as the day might have been, it was our day, and it was perfect.”
Dean told Mister Truth that he and Treviño are planning to have a “proper” wedding ceremony in Houston on April 22, but said that their civil ceremony was definitely one for the books.
“I think it added a sense of momentousness not just for us, but for everybody who was getting married on that day,” Dean said. “Anyone who was standing around waiting to enter had a lot more people there than usual, noticing that they were getting married, and congratulating them and talking to them about it.”
“There’s going to be a lot more documentation of the fact that we got married today, and that’s obviously something that is, I think, ultimately a positive outcome,” he added. “We’ll be able to tell people for the rest of our lives the crazy story behind our legal ceremony.”