A singer-songwriter surprised her best friend and her groom on their wedding day with a secretly written, original song, and the newlyweds’ reaction was priceless.
Grace Leer, 32, has been singing since she was a child. Originally from Danville, California, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2017, to pursue her dream. Her best friend since elementary school, Stephanie Horner, supported her every step of the way.
When Mrs. Horner married her husband, Gus Horner, in Littleton, Colorado, she assured her best friend that she wasn’t expected to sing at the wedding, but Ms. Leer had other ideas.
“She was like, ‘You don’t have to sing, I don’t want you stressed about it,’” Ms. Leer told The Epoch Times. “It was so hard for me to surprise her because she also knows me so well.”
“It was hard. I kind of tried to close my eyes a lot because if I stared at them too much I would have been crying,” said Ms. Leer, who had to hold back tears when she reached the bridge.
“The line is, ‘I remember when you called and said you met somebody; now look at you in that white dress, never looked happier than this,’” she said, “and I just remember being like, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry!
“[O]ne of my favorite things, watching the video back, is when I sing the chorus for the first time and [Mrs. Horner] looks over at Gus because she realizes, like, ‘Wow, this isn’t just about me and Grace, it’s about him.’ I think that was such a sweet moment to see her take that in.”
Ms. Leer never planned to release her song but was just going to gift it to the newlyweds. Since she knew Mrs. Horner was overcome by emotion at the wedding, she sent her the recording afterward, so her friend could listen to the lyrics carefully. A day after the wedding Ms. Leer woke up to a text from Mrs. Horner exclaiming, “I’ve listened to it 100 times, I can’t believe you wrote me that song!”
When the videographer sent Ms. Leer the clip, she decided to share it on her social media account, and the song went viral.
“[O]vernight, it’s a million views, and I just could not believe it,” Ms. Leer said. “It’s just really cool, though, because that’s what music is about. ... It’s as real as it gets, and that’s when music is really special.”
Mrs. Horner has called herself Ms. Leer’s “number one fan” since the first grade. The pair became firm friends after a “silly childhood accident” where Ms. Leer gave Mrs. Horner a black eye, and the two girls went to the nurse together. They’ve been inseparable ever since.
Mrs. Horner has cheered her best friend through numerous talent shows, an appearance on American Juniors, and on to Nashville, from where the pair have had to navigate a long-distance friendship. But Ms. Leer was right there on the phone when Mrs. Horner met her husband-to-be.
“I just remember her calling me and telling me about this guy named Gus,” Ms. Leer said. “Everything she said about Gus was just so many green flags, he just sounded like the perfect guy for her, and I could just hear in her voice how happy she sounded, so I couldn’t wait to meet him.”
When Ms. Leer first got to meet Mr. Horner at Knoxville, the three of them spent a whole day together.
“He pulled me aside at one point, just him and I, and basically told me how much he adored Steph and his intentions for her ... he was asking my advice, like, how to make her happy,” Ms. Leer said. “I was just blown away by how wonderful and caring he was for my person.”
Ms. Leer told her friend that same night, “I think you’re going to marry this guy.”
Mr. Horner proposed to his wife by recreating their very first date in San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Ms. Leer was there, hiding in the bushes, waiting to surprise her best friend in the happy moment.
When it came to writing her song ahead of the Horners’ wedding, Ms. Leer teamed up with Nashville songwriters Robyn Collins and Zarni Devette and shared her friendship story with them. Together, they composed the song in a five-hour intensive songwriting session.
“We were all just in tears the whole writing session, just feeling so much love,” said Ms. Leer, whose favorite verse is the second: “Sleeping bags, in the dark, dreamt them up while were laying there under the stars.”
“We grew up in California, and summers were really warm,” Ms. Leer said. “We used to bring a mattress and sleeping bags [onto the balcony], and we would sleep under the stars ... I loved writing that because it was just so nostalgic to think about those sleepovers, those late nights where you’re kind of pillow-talking about your wedding day.”
However this is not the first time, Ms. Leer has sung for her best friend. The very first song Ms. Leer ever recorded was for Mrs. Horner when they were 11 or 12 years old, for her birthday. It was a cover of Michael Orland’s “Friends Are Found in Funny Places.” At Mrs. Horner’s wedding, the bride gifted engraved gold bracelets to her bridal party, and the engraving on Ms. Leer’s was a nod to this shared memory.
“Mine said on the inside, ‘Friends are found in funny places. Love you,’ and it just was like, so full circle,” Ms. Leer said.
Through thick and thin, Ms. Leer and Mrs. Horner have called each other their soulmate. Watching her best friend get married, Ms. Leer is grateful that Mrs. Horner has found a life partner who will love her just as completely.
“Our bond is so special,” Ms. Leer told The Epoch Times. “We’ve been through a lot of life together in these 25-plus years of friendship, you know. It’s been a lot of career changes and moving across the country, and relationships, finding love and going through heartbreak together, and family stuff. ... You’re just intertwined.
