Kelly and Jacques

Kelly: I said, “I don’t think it’s my time. I’ll go to Medjugorje when I’m older.” Jacques and I, ever since we got married ten years ago, always wanted to go to Paris because I’m an artist and I have an architecture history minor. But after talking to Meghan about it, I was like, “Jacques, we have to go to Medjugorje.” Meghan and I went to high school together so just knowing her and seeing her spiritual transformation. She was so moved by [Medjugorje]. And Jacques was like, “No. We’re going to Paris. I’m not talking about Paris for another ten years or five years — however long it would take us to get there beyond this.”

I asked him twice, and then finally he came to me and said, “We have to go.”

Kelly: We started helping them fundraise for the kids. Something changed and he was like, “We need to go with them.”

Jacques:Yeah, I don’t know what the calling was, but something just said we gotta go. So that’s what we did.

Kelly: He said he wanted come back before I did. The first two days, he said, “I wanna come back again.” Because people always say, once you come, you want to come back.

When we decided we were gonna come, because our anniversary was a week ago, I said we should go up to Cross Mountain and have our marriage blessed by Father Anthony. Then, the other day, Father said, “Do you want to do Apparition Hill?” And we had watched someone propose up there the first day we walked up there. It was just really sweet and I had a change of heart. So I was like, “We need to do that.”

Seeing that [the proposal], I was crying. It touched my heart. And I think that’s why I changed my mind from Cross Mountain to Apparition Hill.

We invited everyone to come with us, but the girls got so excited and they were like, “Y’all are getting married again!” and wanted to be the photographers and they got me the veil. They were so cute because they were photographing it and oohing and aahing while it was happening.

I was a little nervous because I wanted to do it off to the side because it’s very reverent up there. I didn’t want to interrupt anybody’s prayer time. But [Father Anthony] goes up there ahead of us, puts on his stole, and I’m like, “We are not doing this in front of everyone.” But it was really sweet, and he gave us a blessing and did the marriage vows with us. We were holding a cross because I heard that it’s a custom for people who get married in Medjugorje to buy a cross and then hold the cross while you say your vows and then hang it in the home. I wanted to do that because it’s unique to the place and it will be a memento for us.

Jacques: I’ve spent the last few days trying to put my experience of Medjugorje into words and I’ve been unsuccessful. For a person that truly loves to talk, it’s been quite humbling. I can say that there is definitely a level of peace in Medjugorje like no other place I’ve ever been. A peace that can’t be described, only experienced.