Clarion Pastor at *NSYNC’s Kirkpatrick Wedding

Ron Wilshire

Ron Wilshire

Published November 18, 2013 11:02 am
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jake and chrisCLARION, Pa. (EYT) – Rev. Jake Jacobson recently took center stage as the minister for the marriage of former *NSYNC member and Clarion native Chris Kirkpatrick and Karly Skaladany in Orlando.

Jacobson first met Kirkpatrick as a 12-year-old boy when he was visiting his grandparents, Art and Frank Kirkpatrick, who were members of his Grace Lutheran Church in Clarion.

“I would see Chris when he visited, and he stayed with them for a period of time, and that is when I really got to know him,” said Jacobson.

Twenty-some years later Jacobson got a call from Kirkpatrick this spring asking him to marry the couple on November 2.

“He just called me up and said this is Chris, and we’re getting married on November 2, and we would like you to come down and do the wedding,” said Jacobson.

“When the shock wore off, I said ‘Wow! I’m going to be famous,’ and then I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen.  I was afraid I was going to be one of those cardboard clergy that you see from the movies and just sort of a prop.”

Grandfather Introduces Chris

Jacobson remembers when Chris’s grandfather first mentioned that he moved to Florida to be closer to his dad and he was now in a group.  He wrote it off to being a proud grandfather, but the next thing Jacobson knew *NSYNC was front page news, and it happened so quickly.

“I had not seen Chris until his grandmother died, and that was right at the tail end of *NSYNC, and there was still a lot of popularity when he came up for that,” recalled Jacobson.  “We didn’t have much time because of that to talk, but when his grandfather died last year, we spent some considerable time together.  He and Karly both came up, and that is when I got to meet her.  It was pretty obvious at that point that she was the one, and they were very much in love.”

Security was a big part of the wedding plans, and Jacobson was asked not to tell anyone of the plans.  The secret plans were nearly upended when Lance Bass mentioned on his radio show that Chris was getting married.  Jacobson described everyone in a “tizzy” after this slip of tongue, and speculation grew as to where the wedding would be held.

What Should He Say?

Jacobson was still thinking about what he had to offer and shaped his homily on his flight to Florida with his wife Debbie.

“I was struggling with what to say and why am I doing this on the way down,” said Jacobson.  “What is it that I bring to this wedding?  I realized what it was to bring Chris’s grandparents and that was the piece that I could speak to.”

“I talked about the values and the kind of marriage they had which was not an easy time.  It was for richer or for poorer, for sickness and in health, and it wasn’t a glamorous marriage. It was that kind of plodding through day after day and that sense of steady and basic that stays with you.  I said there would be those days where you’re really going to wonder what were we thinking.  It’s that steadiness, not the glamour, glitz, and romance, that will carry you through those days.”

chris-kirpatrick-600“There were two weddings actually going that day, one within the other,” reflected Jacobson.  “One was the very public ‘show,’ and the other was a very personal and intimate wedding.  It was a very much a family and friend-centered wedding.”

“I can remember right after the wedding Chris turned around and surveyed who was there and said there were folks here from every walk of life and every part of his life and that is what it was all about,” said Jacobson.  “It was the mixing of people, and it ran the gamut from Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel to folks from Strattanville.”

Jacobson did get a little ribbing from Kirkpatrick for plugging a couple of *NSYNC song titles in his homily.

“Chris said later that if I had included one more song title, Justin Timberlake would have come and got him.”

He doesn’t have too many photos of the wedding because security was tight and asked everyone to surrender any phones or electronic devices before the wedding started, but he has lots of memories of the weekend.  Exclusive first publication photos were sold to People Magazine.

Mixing It Up with *NSYNC

Attending were all members of the popular 90’s boy band, including Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, and J.C. Chasez.

Jacobson and four of the *NSYNC members (Timberlake did not arrive until the day of the wedding) went out bowling after the wedding rehearsal the night before the wedding.

“It was like hanging out with any other bunch of guys that age.  There were no airs or pretenses.  There wasn’t anything like a sense of we’re special, and it was humble.”

His favorite moment was before the wedding when he was playing hangman in a room (because they had taken away all of the cell phones, etc.) and using a white board to play it.  He went back to the room where he was to get ready for the wedding, and there were suddenly extra security forces, and he noticed that one of them had the sole duty of holding a black hat.  Timberlake had arrived.

Another funny moment was when his wife talked to Joey because her daughter had a big crush on Joey.

“He laughed at her and said ‘I’m sorry ma’am, but the one thing is that all those records she bought and all that stuff she got is putting my daughter through college right now.  So, I thank you.’”

Jacobson’s role as a celebrity pastor was interesting, but he doesn’t see any more in his future.

“It was fun to do, but I wouldn’t be a hurry to do another one,” said Jacobson.  “It was just on a grandeur scale.  There were probably 300 people there, and there was a level of professional that you don’t normally see.  The DJ was not one that you would encounter around here, definitely from a disco or nightclub, and the music would never stop.  I don’t think they did the Hokey Pokey or the dollar dance. Apart from all of that, it wasn’t any different.  You did the same kinds of things, but it was just probably more expensive and on a much grandeur scale. “

While Jacobson enjoyed his time at the wedding, he doesn’t have all that many photos of his role, but he has memories to last a lifetime.

He still recognized part of the 12-year-old he had first met years ago, and despite all of his accomplishments, Jacobson said, “you couldn’t totally take Clarion County out of that boy and the man he became.”

He said it was hard at first to recognize that Kirkpatrick was now 41, but when he got together with his former bandmates, you could easily shave 10 or 20 years off of his age.

jake and chris

Rehearsal photo: Skaladany, Jacobson, and Kirkpatrick.

 

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