At the Super Bowl this past weekend, a wedding scene stole the show midway through Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny’s halftime performance. The artist’s high-energy set took a brief pause, and a couple was married on stage with the celebrity artist as their witness.
Chase Garibaldi, a member of Sacramento’s Project Church, did a double-take from his living room couch, where he watched the game with his family.

“I was like, ‘That guy looks like Antonio,’” Garibaldi said. “And then it hit me. I was like, ‘This is a real wedding.’”

Garibaldi recognized the pastor on stage who married the couple, Antonio Reyes, who leads his church’s South Sacramento location. Reyes was officiating the real wedding live on one of the biggest stages in the world. 

Garibaldi was not the only one to spot Reyes officiating the wedding. Within minutes, social media across Sacramento started buzzing about the news. 

“Instagram started going crazy,” Garibaldi said. “People were excited in Sacramento to see someone local involved in the Super Bowl.”

“It was a real wedding”

Reports later confirmed the couple had originally invited Bad Bunny to their wedding, before being asked to marry on his Super Bowl stage.
For Reyes, the moment was as surreal as it looked on television.

A couple was married during the Super Bowl halftime show as artist Bad Bunny performs at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. The ceremony was officiated by Sacramento pastor Antonio Reyes.AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

“Yes, it was a real wedding,” Reyes said. “Everything was planned for that to be a real wedding.”

Reyes said the wedding was part of a broader vision for the halftime show. He says the entire show was meant to highlight real people and everyday moments.

“If you watch the whole show, they had a taco row, they had someone doing nails,” he said. “All of them are real people, actually doing that. It was a real thing where they were trying to communicate to people and really for people to see themselves in us.”

Reyes was invited through a longtime connection in Los Angeles, where he previously pastored for more than a decade. At first, he didn’t know what he was being asked to take part in. 

“They were looking for a young pastor who speaks Spanish who can officiate a wedding,” he said. “We didn’t know what it was for. We assumed it might be a celebrity couple, but we didn’t know.”

It wasn’t until Reyes had to sign nondisclosure agreements and realized the ceremony would take place during the Super Bowl.

“My wife starts screaming in the kitchen,” Reyes said. “She’s like, ‘Benito, the Super Bowl.’ And I’m just confused at that point.”

At Project Church, leadership knew Reyes would be gone for rehearsals, but few understood why. He said he needed to ask the church’s lead pastor for time to step away for rehearsals.

“It was very hard to keep it to myself,” Reyes said. “It was harder for my wife than for me because she wanted to tell a lot of people.”

Chrissy Cole, a lead pastor at Project Church, said the church fully supported Reyes once they understood the opportunity.

“They were looking for a real officiant because this was a real couple,” Cole said. “He’s an actual pastor and could marry a couple by the state of California law.”

Cole said the church didn’t announce anything ahead of time.

“Once he came on stage, we were like, ‘Yep, that’s him,’” she said. “We were so proud watching.”

On-stage experience

By the time Reyes stepped into the stadium, the scale of the moment finally hit him.

“As soon as you step into the stadium, you feel it,” he said. “You feel it in your chest.”

Phones were locked away during rehearsals to prevent leaks before the event, and Reyes said the pressure was real, not just for him, but for the couple he was about to marry. 

“I even told them, ‘You look at me, I look at you,’” he said. “Let’s live in the moment and not look at the whole crowd right now, because you’re going to get overwhelmed.”
The pastor said he’s choosing not to speak for the couple, Thomas Wolter and Eleisa Aparico, and leaving questions about the experience to them. He says he does not want to take away from their moment. 

Reyes was the only person on stage besides the performers who had a microphone.

“No pressure,” he laughed.

Reyes, who grew up in Michoacán, Mexico, before moving to the U.S. as a teenager, said the moment carried weight far beyond football.

“I feel honored to be part of such a monumental moment for a lot of Latinos,” he said. “Not just the show, there was a bigger message being communicated.”

In the days since, Reyes said he’s heard from people as far away as Mexico who recognized him on television and reached out to him. 

“It’s a very crazy experience for them to see someone like them on a stage like that,” Reyes said.

Reyes returned to Sacramento to a flood of messages and support from people who attend his church.
He will hold his next service this Sunday, but is still unsure how much or when he will share about it at the church. 

“Sundays are very sacred for me,” he said. “There’s a message that needs to be communicated, and that’s more important than what I experienced.”