John Owen-Chambrone was smitten the second he walked into St. Petersburg’s Flamingo Resort for a Bear weekend in May 2019 and locked eyes on his future husband, Richard.
“He had a beautiful smile, a beautiful face and then when he spoke, he had this beautiful accent,” John says.
Richard Owen-Chambrone, originally from Tennessee, was at the LGBTQ hotspot with a mutual friend. He and John were quickly introduced and spent the rest of the evening together during a drag queen bingo event.
From that point on, they started talking every day. By the time St. Pete Pride rolled around about a month later, John asked if Richard would be his boyfriend as they walked around the street festival in the Grand Central District.
When John traveled to Las Vegas for the Fourth of July weekend – their first time apart since they’d met – he told Richard he loved him for the first time. John says things moved quickly but felt right.
Then, in October of that year, he learned that Brie Larson was going to be at ACE Comic Con in Chicago. The actor portrays Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“Captain Marvel has always been my favorite superhero. I’ve always been fascinated by her,” John says.
Richard hadn’t seen any of the Marvel movies until he met John. In fact, one of their early dates was to see Larson’s “Captain Marvel.”
Since she was going to be at Comic Con, which they planned to attend, John decided to make their meet-and-greet with the actress even more memorable by proposing.
“What better way to profess my love than in front of Brie Larson?” he asks.
As they took their picture with her in the convention center, John got down on one knee and popped the question.
“It was cool. I was there with my favorite celebrity, and I just looked at Richard and said, ‘I love you. Will you marry me?’” he recalls. “She actually helped us put the ring on his finger.”
Both Richard – and Larson – were blindsided by the proposal.
“I thought something was wrong. He was shaking really bad. I could tell something was up with him. I thought it was because we hadn’t eaten anything all morning, though,” Richard says. “Turns out it was because he was planning to propose in front of a celebrity.”
The proposal was a whirlwind. John barely even remembers speaking to Larson.
“I don’t really feel like I met her…It was all about Richard,” he says. “Brie who?”
As they left the area, though, Richard turned around to thank Larson for her time and he saw her tearing up.
It was a moment that blew up on social media, touching many people around the world. They were interviewed by media outlets around the globe, Larson – who later sent them flowers – talked about the special moment on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and CNN featured the picture from their proposal in an end-of-the-year roundup.
The excited couple began planning their wedding for May 16, 2020 – the one-year anniversary to the date of when they met.
“Then COVID happened,” John says.
As the pandemic continued, they kept pushing their wedding back further and further until they landed on Aug. 8 of this year.
They rented the St. Petersburg Lions Club Beach House on Treasure Island and planned for a friend to dress as Captain Marvel and marry them. John says that the couple “had these great big plans to finally have this great big wedding.”
Then, right before their big day, Richard didn’t feel well. They assumed he had a sinus infection, and he went to an urgent care clinic. He texted John from the appointment to tell him that he actually tested positive for coronavirus.
The couple panicked. Some of their friends had already flown into town for the wedding, including one friend from New York that John hadn’t seen in 20 years.
“It was so disappointing. It felt like we got so close,” he says.
They had the marriage license ready to go, though, and began thinking of ways they could go ahead with their wedding safely.
They culled their guest list, trimming it down to about 10 people. Richard and John stayed in their home with the sliding glass back door shut while their guests sat on the back patio. They held the ceremony over speaker phone so their guests could hear them and other family members watched the ceremony over Zoom.
“We got thrown lemons, but we made the sweetest lemonade possible,” John says.
Engagement Date: Oct. 12, 2019
Wedding Date: Aug. 8, 2021
Officiant: Cheryl Marsh, Orlando
Venue: Their home
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