Pastor Performs Two Family Weddings 40 Years Apart

KEENE, TEX. – Growing up with or around different pastors, Kristen Parrish in Texas and Derek Veland in Tennessee and Indiana, made it hard to determine who would officiate their Oct. 16, 2022, wedding.

When our future son-in-law was looking through our wedding scrapbook, pictures and video, Veland asked if Benjie Leach, who married us, was still in the area. When we confirmed he was, he asked, “Do you think he still does weddings?”

The rest, as they say, is history. After meeting and having premarital counseling, Leach married them in the same town, in the same chapel of the same church, with the same pianist/organist, Lynn Bedford, as us forty years later.

We are thankful God blessed us by bringing Veland into our daughter’s life, and we feel blessed to have Benjie and Sharon Leach as friends who were able to be part of this historic occasion.
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By Bernie and Carolyn Parrish