OBITCHUARY: A Wedding, a Warning, and a Lot of Pumpkins

The bee landed on Spencer's forehead during the ceremony and stayed there. A hummingbird hovered behind him. The cake was modeled after a tombstone and read "Till Death." By the time Madison finished her maid-of-honor speech, there wasn't a dry eye in Palm Springs. Spencer had spent years convinced he would never want a wedding — grief had hardened him after losing his mom. But standing there, with the Champ beside him, both of them wearing pins made from their mothers' wedding dress fabric, something shifted. "I promise you," he told Madison later, "the more time that goes by, if you do the work and let yourself sit with all the things... I never thought I'd get to a place where I'm just like, yeah, I would want to do that."

The Weekend That Changed Everything

Spencer and the Champ's wedding was small — 50 people total, 25 each — and held at a property in Palm Springs where every guest stayed the whole weekend. "It was like a big slumber party," Madison said. The ceremony happened at 5:30 PM, right as the sun dropped behind the mountain. Spencer's brother-in-law officiated. His sister did all the florals. The dogs wore dresses. After the ceremony came cocktail hour, dinner, and speeches — including Madison's, which she delivered through tears, unable to edit herself in real time.