Signature couple eloped in Vegas: ‘Weird Wedding’

Difficult

wedding bouquet

When the new Hallmark Original Movie, “Love in the Maldives,” premieres on April 1, 2023, viewers might notice that co-stars Jocelyn Hudon and Jake Manley share a simple and authentic chemistry when their characters meet in the “most romantic.” Holidays in the World” aim to fall in love.” That’s because the on-screen couple is also a real-life couple who have been married for a year and a half.

Manley’s surprise proposal was straight out of a Hallmark playbook surrounded by red roses on a Toronto rooftop. But their Oct. 31, 2021 wedding in Vegas, complete with their pink Cadillac, a “Zombie Elvis,” and Hudon’s black wedding dress, was anything but a typical Hallmark affair, according to ET Online. Though Hudon admits it was a “strange wedding,” the couple claims the Halloween escape was perfect for them.

Jocelyn Hudon got engaged surrounded by 1,000 red roses

Hudon, 28, a Hallmark veteran with previous roles on When Calls The Heart and When Hope Calls, as well as starring roles in films such asFrom Friend to Fiancé” with Ryan Paevey and “Baby It’s Cold Outside” with Steve Lund, told ET Online in 2020 that she married Manley, 31, best known for Netflix’s The Order and streaming crime drama Infamous. met through their mutual “self-tape coach – the person who films our auditions” and learned they had the same agent. They then drove together to a summer party thrown by her agent in 2015, she said, and “have been together ever since.”

Hudon told the outlet they knew he was “the one” when he suggested staying on New Year’s Eve, making pasta and watching Lord of the Rings. The two were quarantined together in Los Angeles early in the COVID pandemic, Manley told Young Hollywood in 2020, but he was forced to return to Canada in June while “she stayed in LA with the dog.” The pair share a Golden Doodle named Rupert, who has his own Instagram account.

On their fifth anniversary of dating in August 2020, Manley surprised Hudon with a romantic proposal inspired by one of Hudon’s favorite TV shows, Gilmore Girls, which she told Parade in 2019 as the only show she’s “seen all of.” day” , daily.”

“We had just driven six hours from Toronto to Montreal and got to our Airbnb, which has about six floors, and after a sweaty walk up all the stairs, we went up to the rooftop and waited on the patio for 1,000 red roses,” she said ET Online.

“I was so shocked,” she continued. “I thought maybe production sent them, or it was a mistake, or maybe Airbnb stored them up there, and then Jake said, ‘1,000 Red Roses,’ which is from one of my favorite episodes of ‘Gilmore Girls.’ Then he got down on one knee and I was like, ‘Oh my god, is that real!?’ and then he asked me to marry him! I just fell over and said ‘yes’. I am still shocked. I love surprises.”

Jocelyn Hudon warned her mother that she didn’t have a “perfect, traditional wedding.”

Hudon told ET Online that she originally planned a Canadian wedding and found her dress on the TLC show Say Yes to the Dress, but the couple eventually decided all that planning was too much work. In 2021, she was so busy filming that she and Manley, who got engaged in 2020, decided on a whim to escape to Las Vegas for their favorite holiday, Halloween.

“I always had Vegas in the back of my mind,” she told the outlet. “When I was in college, I met this girl who told me her dream was to have a wedding in Vegas, and it stayed with me forever.”

She continued, “I was in the process of shooting three films in a row and we realized that Halloween – my absolute favorite day – fell on a Sunday, so I was able to fit that into my shooting schedule. And then it snowed from there.”

On March 4, 2022, she shared photos of her Halloween wedding on Instagram, captioning the series of photos with just a black heart. The photos show that she wore a shimmering black mini dress to her wedding at A Little White Wedding Chapel, the site of many celebrity weddings since 1951, including Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s wedding in 2022.

Hudon and Manley texted their guests, she told ET Online, saying, “We actually had a surprising number of people who flew in at the last minute for this, which was so awesome.”

But the actress said she had to tell her mother in advance that the wedding would be very different from what she’s used to.

“I was trying to mentally prepare my mom for a weird wedding,” she said. “I told her it’s not going to be a perfect traditional wedding – we’re going to be married next to a Cadillac in a tunnel with Elvis dressed up as a zombie. But luckily Zombie Elvis went beyond my expectations and my dad walked me down the aisle which was great.”

Hudson shared photos to Instagram while filming Love in the Maldives in November 2022, including pictures of her swimming with sharks. She has also shared many photos and videos from her adventures there on her Instagram Stories.

When someone asked if the experience was “great,” Hudon replied, “Yes!!! Was a difference between freediving and scuba diving. Diving I find you’re more of an observer where freediving felt a lot more of a mess.

Love in the Maldives premieres April 1, 2023 at 8 p.m. Eastern.