08.08.2026

Ceremony: First Church of Christ Milford, CT Reception: The Spillane House 27 Cranbury Dr. Trumbull, CT

Nineteen years ago, in August 2007 the Spillane family moved into the house on the corner of Cranbury Drive and Wintergreen Lane. There were lots of families in the neighborhood and, for the first year, Julie, Andy and Tim played with all of them all the time. After that first year, one family stood out because the girl and the two younger boys - Catie, Jack and Sean - matched up with the ages of the Spillane kids. There was an older boy too, but he didn’t match up with anyone. We’ll get back to him later. In a kind-of “opposites attract” way, Julie and Catie became best friends. The two girls of the families would spend hours dressing up, performing shows and filming on the Flip Video camera. They did their best to convince the younger brothers to dress up and perform with them, but Tim and Sean were too little, Jack would rather be playing sports, and Andy was more interested in tormenting his older sister than anything - at least that’s how she remembers it. In fact, really the only time the little brothers would agree to perform is when that oldest Allen brother got involved. Julie may have been the bossy one, but James Allen was the one who everyone followed. He got along with each and every Spillallen in their own unique way. It is also worth noting that each and every Spillallen performance ended with Julie’s character and James’s character falling in love and getting married. Now how that happened, Julie has no idea. She was the writer, director and producer of these shows, but surely it must have been a coincidence. Well it was not a coincidence. Julie spent years directing more wedding scenes, getting butterflies at the bus stop and doodling hearts with the letter J inside insisting it stood for Julie. But, of course it stood for James. It always stood for James. And it always will. Nearly fifteen years after the summer the Spillanes moved in, James and Julie met up, just the two of them, in the Allen’s backyard for a campfire. It wasn’t intended to be a date, but this day would start the most beautiful, fantastical, unbelievable love story of all time. This wedding is not only a celebration of our love for one another, but the coming together of two families that have always been so deeply connected.