Tom Hanks surprised a bride on her wedding day: 'I just became speechless'

Bride Grace Gwaltney was about to enter her wedding ceremony at a hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, last Saturday, when she received the surprise of a lifetime. As it turned out, none other than Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks was filming a movie right next door. So, as you would expect him to, he decided to pop in and share a special moment with the bride and her bridesmaids. In an interview with Good Morning America, Gwaltney revealed what it was like to be surprised on her big day by the celebrity. Hanks was in town to film the movie "A Man Called Otto," in which he plays a retired man who becomes friends with his neighbors, the media outlet reports.

"At first I thought it was a random person on the street just wanting to say congratulations, but, when I heard, 'Hey, I’m Tom Hanks,' I immediately froze and just became speechless," Gwaltney shared during the interview. "My first thought was, 'Thank God we had Rachel Rowland [the wedding photographer] already taking photos and thank God I had my two sisters next to me.' [They] did all the talking to him because I don't think I uttered a word after we realized it was him." Luckily, the wedding photographer had just finished taking photographs of the bridal party outside of their hotel when Hanks asked if he could "take a photo with the bride."

Rowland stated, "He just came up, very jovial, happy, exactly what you would think Tom Hanks would do." In order to capture the moment, she grabbed both her phone as well as her camera and began taking photos of the bride and her equally stunned bridesmaids (of course, she was taken aback herself). "You always think, ‘When I meet a celebrity, I’m not going to be one of those crazy, screaming people," she said. "But no, I immediately started screaming. Because it’s Tom Hanks. You’re never prepared to meet Tom Hanks." The bridal party even had the opportunity to meet Hanks's own wife, Rita Wilson, who joined in for one of the photos. The photographer recalled, "We realized half the bridesmaids were in the limo and [Hanks] is yelling, 'Get them out here. Get out here.' Then Rita was standing next to me and we were like, ‘Let’s get Rita in there,' and she was like, 'No, no, no,' and we finally got her in and it was a really sweet moment."

Meanwhile, Gwaltney and her bridesmaids were in complete disbelief. When she approached her now-husband Luke for the first time at the church and told him, he was just as shocked. She revealed, "We had a moment before the ceremony where we prayed back-to-back so he wouldn’t see me in my dress, and before we started I said, 'Luke, we met Tom Hanks.' I think he was excited for us but also he was in disbelief, and probably more focused on the fact that we were about to get married." To the bride, meeting Hanks and Wilson was "truly [the] icing on the cake" of her wedding day. "Our wedding day was so special and so fun and I think Tom Hanks coming up to us to start the day just added to all the excitement," Gwaltney reaffirmed. "I can’t wait to look back at our photo album and see all our wedding details, friends and family, and then have this photo with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson."