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OGDEN — Ally Chambers' brother Austin, who has autism, beautifully officiated her and her husband's ring ceremony last year. His heartwarming and hilarious personality was captured in a must-see YouTube video.
Chambers originally wanted her older brother to officiate the ring ceremony because she didn't think he would be able to attend her wedding at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Ogden Utah Temple. Austin Chambers was not baptized into the church and did not have an authorized temple recommend necessary to witness a marriage in the religious building.
However, the Chambers family learned in the church's General Handbook, it says a church leader known as a stake president "may authorize a person who has not been baptized or endowed due to intellectual disabilities to observe the temple marriage or sealing of his or her … siblings" as long as the person is at least 18 and able to be reverent during the ceremony.
Although he was able to be at the temple, Chambers still asked him to officiate the ring ceremony, and her mother, who she says is really crafty with words, wrote the ceremony, and he added his own personality to it.
"He practiced so hard," Chambers said, mentioning that he tried to memorize the words his mom wrote, and he added some of the humorous theatrics himself.
"It meant a lot to me because … on our special day, it would have been so easy just to kind of get focused on everything else and forget about him," Chambers said. "And I love that we just had a moment to include him, because he's really just been a big part of our life, a big part of our family, and he really is the glue of our family … the joy of everything. And so it's just fun for everyone else to see that. They don't always get to see this side of Austin."
Trellany Bodine, the videographer for Chambers' and Jon Boam's wedding, said this was the first time she's seen a family member of the wedding party with a disability participate like this.
"I thought he absolutely crushed it," she said. "He knew all his lines, he didn't get nervous, he was up there confident, and you could just tell he was just glowing with happiness to be able to be up there and do that special thing for them."
Where Austin Chambers is at on the autistic spectrum, he is able to speak, independently grocery shop, exercise outside by himself and prepare his own dinner. He struggles to communicate how he's feeling or let his family know if he needs help.
He also gets easily overwhelmed by things, which is why Chambers and Boam scheduled all of their wedding festivities from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., so it wouldn't be a full day that would overwhelm him.
During the wedding reception, they left the groom's room open for Austin Chambers so he could go back and watch TV when he needed to rest.
"He'd go back there to kind of relax and regroup, because it's just a lot, it's a lot to process," his sister said.
Chambers thinks her brother enjoyed officiating the ring ceremony, and she knows he was excited for her to get married, because that meant she would move out of the house. She said he loves his three siblings, but they are too loud for him.
"I think it's so important, especially in the small and the big moments of our lives, to include our family members who are on the autism spectrum or something like that it's important to include them. Because they're so easy to skip over and not include," she said.
