A Welsh couple couldn't believe it when Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo 'gatecrashed' their wedding. Klaire Hodgson and Lynz Tanner chatted with the Hulk star just moments before the ceremony in New York's Central Park.
The couple, from Gwynedd, had decided to get married in America spontaneously after Klaire flew to a conference in San Francisco then on to an event in New York where Lynz, 28, who is a bar manager, joined her.
But it took them a moment to realise that the man who had come over to say hello before the outdoor ceremony was Mark Ruffalo, who played Dr Bruce Banner/Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise film The Avengers, and stars with Wrexham AFC's joint owner Ryan Reynolds in The Adam Project.
The couple said it was a "special" moment on what was already the best day of their lives last Saturday. Klaire, Lynz, and their best man Kayley Roberts had been preparing for the open air ceremony in Central Park last weekend.
Klaire told NorthWalesLive: "Lynz proposed to me last June and we'd gone through about a million different wedding ideas. Some of it was how expensive the wedding industry is and how heteronormative the wedding industry is. It's supposed to be a happy time.
"I was already going to America for a couple of weeks. I was going to San Francisco for a work conference. And the week after I was going to do volunteer work with an LGBT youth group. We'd been asked to go to New York (for that) to share ideas."
But Klaire said she and her fiancee said to each other "OMG I'm going to miss you' as they'd never spent two weeks apart before.
"Then I said 'Why don't we get married in New York!' This was a week before I was leaving for America. I told my parents and some family."
So the couple did some research from their Gwynedd home on the advertising website Craigslist and found a wedding official - a marriage "officiant" - called Antonia Santiago. Then they arranged to meet her for the ceremony in Central Park.
Klaire said: "We ended up giving the video link to our family and a couple of friends. It was quite funny because on the day we were starting up the video link in Central Park Mark Ruffalo must have seen what was going on because he detoured over to us.
"Everybody was on the phone call and all of a sudden this guy starts slowly walking over. He stopped and he's saying 'Hello' to us and we're saying 'OK, you alright?
"I think he was waiting for us to recognise him. I noticed he had a really nice camera and I was thinking 'Oh, he must do photography'. But I thought 'I can't know this guy. I'm in New York, I don't know anyone in New York.'
"He started walking down a bit and I turned around and Lynz and Kayley are looking at each other. And I said 'I think I know that guy' and Lynz said 'Is that Mark Ruffalo?'
"And she turns around just as he's walking away and said 'Oh my God" Mark Ruffalo!' And then he turned round and was like 'Hey!' He came back over then. He was absolutely lovely. He was so nice."
The star posed a photo. Klaire said: "I had no idea what to do with my arms. Later he shook my hand about three times and said 'Aw I'm so happy for you'. He was so super-nice. He was just a regular guy."
Looking back, Klaire said: "It was amazing that we got married in Central Park. It was so magical and the whole day was beautiful and then Mark Ruffalo turning up and being in pictures with us, it did make it extra special."
Klaire, creative director for Animated Technologies, admits that the pair are quite "nerdy". Two days before they got married she got a Batman tattoo on her leg and on their wedding suits they had Star Trek "communication" badges, like in the famous films where the characters can press on them and seemingly talk to other people on the star ship Enterprise.
Klaire said: "So for The Hulk to turn up was pretty cool! Of all the people, of all the genres of film or TV or anything to have turned up to our nerdy wedding!"
Incredibly, that wasn't the only star-studded moment of the trip. The couple had even been swept up in some of the excitement around Donald Trump's court appearance because the week before Saturday's wedding they had had to go to the State Clerk's Office in Manhattan to collect their marriage licence.
But Donald Trump supporters were already demonstrating as the former US President was due to appear in court within days charged with falsifying business records, which he denies.
"There were loads of news vans there already. I took a picture of a woman holding a Trump sign after asking her permission. A few hours later a similar picture was on a British newspaper website because the guy next to me had been one of their photographers."
Trump appeared in court on Tuesday this week to formally face 34 charges.
Klaire said: "Then we were watching it on the news last night and saying 'We were there! We were there!' That's the guy that gave us directions!"
The couple have decided not to take a honeymoon. They had some time in New York before their wedding and that was their honeymoon, they say.
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