How to Joyfully Plan a Wedding, According to All My Life's Real Couple

At the start of 2020, humanity did not expect for the year ahead to be marked so severely by loss. For couples planning their weddings, losing their original event concept or having to delay those hopes have caused not only mounting frustration, but a sense of grief. On December 4, the All My Life movie will be released nationwide, where viewers will witness Solomon Chau and Jenn Carter's enduring commitment to each other—and the unlikely combination of grieving during a time of celebration.

"Every love story has its highs and lows, and mine and Sol's was no different," Carter previously said in a statement to The Knot and others. "In the year that he proposed to me during a flash mob, orchestrated with the help of our family and friends, Sol was also diagnosed with liver cancer. We were two very ordinary individuals who found ourselves in a very extraordinary situation."

As witnessed in the film, Sol (played Harry Shum Jr.) and Jenn (Jessica Rothe) are in the throes of celebrating a new engagement when they're suddenly faced with a greater task: navigating his terminal cancer diagnosis, which seemingly deprives the pair of their future hopes. In one particularly poignant moment, Sol tells Jenn that if they receive bad news (ultimately, his impending death), they'd get a dog. After visiting his doctor one afternoon, he greets his fiancee outside of their home with the newest member of the family: a puppy.

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Courtesy of Jenn Carter

From there, viewers witness the confusion and pain of navigating the imminent loss of a partner while wedding planning. Though most couples will thankfully avoid such a fate, the pandemic has encouraged to-be-weds to see life stages through a different lens—one that forces presence. Here are tips gathered from Carter, stars Shum and Rothe, as well as the crew of the All My Life movie, on how to joyfully plan a wedding together, even during the toughest of times.

Moving Forward Is a Choice

In any challenging situation, there's often a defining moment where a decision needs to be made. For Solomon Chau and Jenn Carter, it was accepting his fate and living out his final days as fully as possible. "We had the choice to either give in to the fear that Sol's cancer prognosis had laid upon us, or, to move forward with every ounce of love and support we'd be given, making the most of our time we had left together," Carter noted. "Our family and friends, our community, and even complete strangers stepped in to help make the last few months of Sol's life memorable."

Adds Todd Rosenberg, the screenplay writer of the film: "In my initial talks with Jenn in those first few months, Sol had just passed away. What she really wanted was to talk about his spirit and his attitude through getting this news of his illness."

"From the beginning, Sol wanted life to go forward and wanted to make sure they got the most of their time together," he continues. "As things feel stagnant right now for a lot of people, their world in that time was all about accepting reality and moving forward."

Tackle Challenges Together

It seems obvious, but tackling grief as a couple isn't the most intuitive practice. (Read about it from the experts.) Chau and Carter made the decision to face their reality, and muster up strength, for each other. "For the most part, it was Sol who was strong through the process," notes Rosenberg. "He was driving things forward and ensuring life continued with the time they had." The groom, in his final year, embraces his destiny with a ferocity and pursues his role as a fiance and his passion to be a chef (even going so far as to catering his own wedding menu).

"Everyone who had the privilege to witness Sol during his darkest hours will remember him as the one in the room with the biggest smile; the one who wanted to make sure that everyone around him was okay; and the one who took the challenges that life had given him and found a way to make the most of it," Carter shared. "He will always be someone who gave the world his all, and in his time of need, the world gave it right back. It is an honor to be sharing our story with the world through this film."

Support Your Partner and Their Dreams

Even while Sol's prognosis appeared grim, Jenn encouraged her then-fiance to pursue his passion: cooking and coming up with new recipes of unlikely combinations. "They wanted to take chances together and to support each other's dreams," notes Rosenberg, who shares his own personal story of having a partner who was willing to do the same.

"I lived in Brooklyn and moved to L.A. to pursue a dream of writing," he says. "I just didn't want to be in New York wondering 'what if.' If a husband or wife or a partner has a lingering what if, a partner should do what they can to help answer that question."

While in L.A., an agent approached Rosenberg about Solomon Chau and Jenn Carter's story, in particular. "I gave him my take on why it was important to me and it was a leap of faith in the beginning," he recalls. "I had never written anything like this before. I ended up writing a script that would end up in a drawer. The fact that it came together, it became real. Jenn liked the script and that was a big deal." Rosenberg watched the film with his wife in their living room, something he describes as a "full circle moment."

Find Optimism Where Possible

Universal Pictures

We get it: it's a difficult time. Whether it's your wedding or other life circumstances, once you've mourned and made choices to move forward with whatever decision you've made, the next step is to make an active decision to find the good. "Jenn Carter, the character in the movie is emblematic of that," director Marc Meyers explains to The Knot. "She stays strong and sees the beauty of that in the relationship. The same for Sol: he looks to stay positive for what he has versus dwelling on the negative."

Lean Into Life's Moments: Loud and Quiet

Universal Pictures

As weddings are a defining moment, wedding planning, then, is seen as a quiet opportunity to savor the engagement process. "That dog's presence in a lot of ways did capture the spirit of their relationship," notes Rosenberg. "He wanted to make sure that by having a dog, she would have something to take care of beyond the time that he may have."

"Every sequence of the movie, there's always something I'm really proud of, which we captured in an authentic honest way," notes Meyers. "And I really love their first dance, because it represents the things that got them to that victorious moment. I love how she looks at him, and there's an intimate, quiet moment between the two of them, where all of the guests' eyes are on them. As viewers, we're guests at their wedding too."

Encourage Those Around You

Your story is a vehicle to help others. If you're comfortable sharing or being vulnerable, chances are there could be someone in your circle who finds inspiration through your experiences, permitting how you decide to respond to your given challenges.

"I was actually planning my real life movie while shooting this movie. I was getting all the joys, the anxiety, and the terror of planning a wedding, ten million times over," Rothe tells The Knot. "Weddings are such a beautiful opportunity not only to celebrate your love, but to celebrate all those around you who've been your support system. Our film celebrates that."

Rothe, who married amid COVID-19, likens her planning experience to Carter's in some ways. "It was a funny thing of Jenn trying to plan a wedding and it turning into something else," she adds. "And that's what happened to me while planning during COVID: we had a small microwedding in the woods behind their house."

The actress used the moment to still support her local community and show love to her inner circle. "We still had the vendors we booked. We still used our vendors, like the florist and the caterers," she says. "We were lucky to be able to do it outdoors, COVID-safe, everybody wore masks. It was crazy, wild and tricky. But I wouldn't change a thing."

Face Each Minute With Gratitude

In short, your relationship is worth receiving with gratitude. "Appreciate all the little moments," Meyers concludes. "These little small moments, there will be a time when we look back and possibly cherish these times."

"The fact that we wrote in how Sol lived out to do the things he was passionate about: Jenn, cooking, finding his dreams, that's what we wanted people to leave with after seeing this movie. This reminder that there's no promise of tomorrow," concludes Rosenberg. "If you're not living and pursuing what's right to you in your heart: relationship-wise, career-wise, now in COVID times, there is a grand reassessment with what's going on and it falls in line with what people are experiencing. Life could be much shorter than we think."

Universal Pictures

The film opens with Carter's character discussing time and the number of minutes, on average, allotted to each human. It ends with a sense of true urgency. "If you're not happy, change. Shift gears, take a chance… life is not meant to be lived later," she reflects in her eulogy. "Sol always looked for moments, a laugh, a kiss, a taste, a dance. That was his gift to us. Reminding us to collect moments every day… In those moments, you will find yourself."

All My Life, based on the true love story between Solomon Chau and Jenn Carter, is out in theaters Dec. 4, 2020.