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  • 2 days ago
A beloved principal fought back tears of happiness and appreciation when teachers, pupils, and her fiancé surprised her with an on-campus wedding ahead of her own big day. Brianna Lanoye, from Buffalo, New York, is the founding principal of the Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School's second Doat Street campus and is now entering her sixth year at the school. During that time, Principal Lanoye has seen her community grow from just 60 children during COVID to more than 425 staff and students today – and with that increased number of bodies has also come a growing affection for Principal Lanoye, who was scheduled to marry her fiancé, Zach Klapp, on Sunday, October 12. Knowing how much the school means to her colleague, who “would have loved for all her pupils to attend her wedding,” assistant principal Courtney Champlin decided that she wanted to plan something special with the school's pupils themselves to mark the occasion. And so, Ms. Champlin decided to go big and settled on hosting a surprise wedding at the school itself. For weeks, Ms. Champlin met with the school's team to coordinate decorations, contacted parents discreetly about the surprise, and even reached out to Zach to make sure he and the couple's moms could attend. As part of the plan, middle school students secretly practiced leading the ceremony, while it was agreed that elementary school pupils would be part of the bridal party. With Principal Lanoye completely unaware of the surprise, she noticed that students were rather formally dressed on Friday, October 3 – which she put down to the fact that pupils are free to wear their own clothes on Fridays, and perhaps she was overthinking the formalities. But then, with fellow teacher and videographer Greg McClure setting up his camera to record, Principal Lanoye was presented with a veil and told the news that, in fact, she was set to have a wedding at the school that very day. The principal was left completely stunned, covering her face in shock, bef
Transcript
00:00Hundreds of students worked together on this adorable secret assignment,
00:04throwing a surprise wedding for their beloved principal.
00:09Brianna's wedding was just days away, but her colleagues and fiance Zach knew she'd love to
00:16invite every student. So they decided to bring the wedding to school instead. Staff and students
00:24secretly readied the schoolyard for a wedding celebration to remember.
00:28It was just a normal Friday. I had noticed earlier that students were pretty dressed up,
00:34but we have our dressed down or out of uniform day on Friday. I noticed that people were really going
00:40all out, but I didn't think anything to this magnitude was happening.
00:44While Brianna was on lunge duty, Assistant Principal Ms. Champlin grabbed her for a quick chat.
00:50We all love you so much that we're giving you a surprise wedding!
01:08I didn't really know what it meant until I exited the back doors and saw our student community.
01:30There she found students had formed a wedding party.
01:36Hi! You guys are so cool!
01:42With two representatives from each grade walking in with white roses and Ms. Champlin giving her away.
01:52My fiance at that time was down there, his mom was there, my mom was there, and it was really quite extravagant.
02:08What was most meaningful about the entire thing was just elevating our student voices.
02:19Our students were giving marital advice. Our officiant was one of our sixth graders.
02:23That you, Ms. Clingaway, promised to love Zach even on Mondays before coffee.
02:30I do.
02:30We gave ring pops to each other, which was super sweet.
02:34By the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife forever, forever.
02:42It was just so fun to see the entire student body celebrating on a beautiful day on our beautiful campus.
02:49In that moment, it was just like one of those realizations where I'm like, this is truly a dream come true.
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