A bride-to-be immediately burst into tears when a video message from her soldier brother who she thought could attend her wedding because of his service in the Middle East turned into an in-person surprise. India Jones, 28, from Bedford, Virginia, had always dreamed that her younger brother Christian, 23, would attend her wedding – but Christian’s military commitments made things difficult. For eight months prior to India’s big day, Christian, a sergeant with the United States Army, had been based in Iraq. Christian’s service was meant to last nine months, India said, and so she was left heartbroken, knowing that he would not be able to make her wedding at the start of June. But little did India know that, back in January, Christian had been granted permission to leave his deployment early to make his sister’s big day. This push was partially fueled by experiences of the past, as military service had meant that Christian had missed his other sister’s wedding, back in October 2023. The siblings’ parents knew a couple of weeks before the surprise, India said, and so on the night of her rehearsal dinner, on May 31, they handed her a phone with a video message from Christian, who India believed was still in Iraq. As she watched the message in a steakhouse in Forest, Virginia, India began to get emotional – but nothing could prepare her for what was about to happen. Towards the end of the clip, a smiling Christian entered the restaurant, causing a shocked India to immediately burst into tears as friends and family also looked stunned. The extremely close siblings then headed in for a loving hug, which was captured on video by India’s dad and other family members.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00She never expected her military brother to crash her wedding.
00:05Christian had been deployed for eight months in the Middle East and the time
00:12away was really hard on his big sister India.
00:15He's like, you know, my younger brother wants to protect him, you know, but like
00:19now he's like a man. Now they're serving the country.
00:22And because he was serving the country Christian couldn't make his older
00:26sister's wedding and India thought he wouldn't make hers either.
00:31But the day of her rehearsal dinner she got an unexpected message.
00:36I want to start off first by saying I am so incredibly proud of India and landing.
00:43This is an incredible milestone and it's a day that y'all will remember for the rest of your lives.
00:49Yeah, I love y'all very much and so if you remember from Jasmine's wedding the
00:56video that I did for her, I had my kit on, I had my weapon, I had all that but I
01:02don't have that on today as because today is May 11th and I am leaving in a
01:09couple of hours to go to Kuwait and from there I'll leave to come home in time
01:13for the wedding. Not just in time for the wedding but in time for the rehearsal dinner.
01:18So, surprise.
01:26Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
01:34I was just blacked out. Didn't know what was going on. I was like, this is not real.
01:39Like, it's kind of like a dream.
01:43They hid him in the kitchen in the restaurant.
01:47Y'all know about it. Oh my God.
01:51I got paramedics on standby, don't worry.
01:54He was back there having a beer with the cook.
01:57That's kind of funny now that I know everything.
02:03Think of the sense of relief that he's home safe because who knows what he went
02:07through over there and the effort that he made to come home just meant the world
02:11to me. A few weeks before the wedding, I actually wrote him a note that said,
02:15to my brother on my wedding day. Wrote in there like a whole paragraph full of
02:20stuff of like, I wish you were here. Can't wait to see you when you come back.
02:26And he did come back just a little sooner than she expected.
02:31We've been ups and downs our whole life. You know, we fight, you know, we bicker,
02:35you know, it's like, at the end of the day, we love each other. And now we're at
02:38the point where we're all older. We're all actually all married now. And we just
02:41take, you know, don't take that for granted that we just love those moments
02:45together because friends come and go, you know, through your whole life and
02:48siblings and family stay forever.