PHOTOS BY COURTNEY RUTLEDGE PHOTOGRAPHY

How do you choose who will officiate your wedding? For these two Pittsburgh couples, the answer was easy: the person was related to them. 

Samantha Jamison is the triplet sister of singer Chris Jamison, but asking him to perform at her wedding when she married Drake D’Angelo in 2022 didn’t feel right. 

“He’s sung at many weddings, and … you can’t go wrong with having Chris Jamison sing at your wedding — but I thought it would be even a little more special to incorporate him in a more unique way,” Samantha says. 

Samantha and Chris’ sisters were her co-maids-of-honor, and her older brother was a reader during the ceremony. Drake’s cousin was his best man. 

“For my husband and I, it was definitely important to involve as many family members as possible in our wedding,” she says.

PHOTOS BY ABBIE TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY

When Jaclyn Stankus and Zac Kuchta married in 2022, they also wanted family involved. Zac’s father, David Kuchta, was a pastor, and the couple knew he was the person they wanted with them at the altar.

“I feel like from the moment we got engaged, we knew that’s who we wanted to have as our pastor and marry us because that’s special in and of itself,” Jaclyn says.

It was special to Zac’s father as well; he retired shortly after the couple got married, so officiating their wedding was his last act as pastor.

During the ceremony, held in 2022 at Heinz Memorial Chapel, Zac’s father cracked some jokes about his son and talked about his own marriage to Zac’s mother.

“I feel the personal touch he added was bringing in personal stories from our lives,” Jaclyn says. 

“The stories were genuine and real.” 

During Drake and Samantha’s ceremony, Chris spoke of his and Samantha’s childhood (“growing up a triplet, you have a special bond,” Samantha says) and incorporated some funny family stories, but the bulk of his message was about their Christian faith.

“Not only did we think it would be special to have him as my brother be a co-officiant for our wedding, I had a feeling he’d put together a really meaningful message that was rooted in scripture, which was really important to my husband and myself,” Samantha says.

As Chris is not an ordained minister, the couple asked a family member’s former co-worker, former Orchard Hill Church care pastor George Palombo, to assist, and he officiated the exchange of the vows and rings. 

Overall, Samantha says she thinks her brother appreciated his significant role. 

“There’s just something special about having all of the people you love in the same room and they’re all involved in some way,” she says.