A touching photo of Marine Corporal Caleb Earwood praying with his bride-to-be just moments before their wedding ceremony in Asheville, North Carolina, has lit up Internet forums and news outlets.
Wanting to preserve the tradition of not seeing one another before their wedding ceremony, Earwood and his now-wife Maggie had friends and family position them around a corner from one another so they could pray together to prepare for making the leap into the next stage of their lives.
“We were about to take our first steps in life together, and we didn’t want to take a step without God’s will,” Caleb told Today.com afterward. “I prayed to God for my beautiful and intelligent wife that He blessed me with and the amazing family I was marrying into.”
Caleb, 21, and Maggie, 22, have been friends since high school and started dating about two years ago.
“It relieved me to know the person I was getting ready to marry felt the same way about God,” Maggie said of Caleb’s prayer.
A picture of the moment was captured by wedding photographer Dwayne Schmidt, after which it quickly went viral online.
“We’re thankful that our picture is able to bless so many people and touch that many hearts,” Caleb said.
