Inside Leslie Powell Viral Wedding and Her Love Story With Thomas Gillespie.
Leslie Powell and Thomas Gillespie lived out a rom-com dream that didn’t need a Hollywood script. The singer and sister of actor Glen Powell, 30, said “I do” in March 2025, and the wedding instantly became the talk of the Internet thanks to the glittering guest list and the adorable family moments that slipped out from behind the wedding video cameras.
Before the big “I do” moment, though, the pair followed the path of so many of us in the digital age. Leslie and Thomas swiped, matched, and connected through a dating app, just like the adorable couples in our TikTok feed.
The couple partners with Bumble for the app’s new “For the Love of Love” worldwide campaign, which shines the spotlight on actual app love stories. Leslie and Thomas share their own journey for the first time revealing the charm, laughter, and a few surprisingly awkward first-date stories that got them from “Hello” to happily-ever-after.
Powell shares that living in Los Angeles during the COVID lockdown in 2021 made meeting new people pretty impossible. “Most folks just weren’t going out,” she remembers. That’s when she decided to give online dating a shot.
“I figured the only way to meet anyone was through a dating app, and I’m so grateful for that. I mean, we meet most folks at work, so I’m pretty sure Gillespie and I wouldn’t have crossed paths anywhere else!” she laughs about her match on Bumble.
She liked Bumble the most because the profiles helped her “really see who a person is.” You can learn “what people care about,” plus whether family matters to them. Since Powell’s own family is super close, she was especially keen on that detail.
Plus, with Bumble, she points out, “the girls message first,” which is exactly how she kicked things off.
Gillespie remembers that when Powell spotted his golf pics online, she knew she’d go first and zeroed in on that right away, and it grabbed him right off the bat.
“She saw the swing photo and didn’t waste a beat,” he says. “Her message was: ‘I loved golf but it’s been a minute—think the teacher might have a spare lesson?’ and I thought, ‘A girl who actually wants to hit the links!?’—I could tell already the vibe would be a blast!”
From Powell’s side, it was all about his family shots. “The Sept. winner was the sweet snap with his mom and grandma,” she remembers fondly. “Caption read ‘my leading ladies’ along with the biggest pair of grins. He was a total catch and credited his crew—if he was even half this sweet in real life, the first-in-person could only be a slam dunk.”
Find Related Stories! Emily Osment Shocks Fans as Divorce From Jack Anthony Finalized After Just 5 Months
A week of text and voice notes and it was go time: they locked in a date at the Conservatory on Santa Monica Boulevard in LA, and the connection was instant.
“I knew I was done for the minute he lowered the face cover,” Powell laughs. “Guess what—he was even model-in-person handsome, and the vibe only got better from there!”
“He tells me right after I pulled down the mask, the look I got was an instant, ‘Uh oh,’” Thomas cracks up.
“She had this killer smile,” Gillespie chimes in, his eyes lighting up. “Super contagious, and somehow we kept the conversation and the laughter rolling. I bet we closed down two places in one night and didn’t care. Best first date, period, ever. I didn’t want the clock to keep moving. My stomach was sore the next day from laughing, and I promise neither of us had ever bounced out of a first date looking like we’d won the lottery.”
They figured it out quick that night: they’d each met “the one.” For Gillespie, it really clicked about a month and a half later, when Powell brought him as her plus one to a wedding out in Austin.
“She invited me to dinner with her parents,” he remembers. “On the drive to the restaurant, her mom pointed out every special, tiny detail about Leslie that I’m sure Leslie could never say herself. I just smiled the whole time, it was so simple and sweet. Her dad filled the car with these funny golf stories while asking me the good questions. It was like they really wanted to welcome me in. Right then I felt the truth: the loving, funny, beautiful Leslie was the real deal. I looked in the mirror and thought, wow, one of the good ones, no doubt. The rest felt obvious—we were in it together for good.”
For Leslie, it wasn’t one grand gesture that got her, but the everyday evidence of who Joseph was. “I had never met someone who slipped ‘thoughtful’ into every little thing they did,” she explains. “Every single day had some sweet, simple surprise. I could feel myself getting happier, one moment after another. I felt like the luckiest I could ever be. I was out running an errand. As I backed out of the driveway I just knew: I had finally met the person I was searching for since day one.”
Leslie is close-knit with her parents and her brother and sister, and she says her family “is very tough on who they like.” From the moment Joseph walked in the front door, though, they felt the calm, easy spark.
“I kept going on dates in L.A. and always left feeling blah,” she laughs. “Then I met Thomas and couldn’t stop raving about him. My family—the toughest critics—never hesitated. They usually screen guys like they’re picking a diamond for me. But one dinner in and they were all in; they always wanted what made me happy, and it didn’t take long for Thomas to win the trophy.”
On March 29, 2025, the pair made it official. Their wedding went super viral, from the clip of Powell’s brother Glen choking up when he first saw her in the dress to a full-on Hollywood guest list that included Glen’s Anyone But You co-star, Sydney Sweeney.
About the buzz, Powell smiles and says, “Our wedding was, hands down, the best day ever. When you say ‘I do’ and the entire universe is in the same room—well, that’s already a movie and the film went viral for the afterparty. Everyone loving it was just icing on the icing.”
Now that they’re officially Mr. and Mrs., the plan is to dive into their first holiday season as a married duo and, they say, are already mapping out their married Christmas. “New traditions are calling,” she adds.
“Holidays are among the most magical times of the year,” Gillespie says, smiling. “They’re a beautiful reason to take the ordinary and turn it into something memorable—from tiny ornaments to big family meals. Those are the moments we’re crafting now, the ones our kids will tell their kids one day. And the sweetest part? We get to do it together, a family side by side forever. We feel so lucky that these winters are ours, and we can’t wait to keep collecting new little adventures.”
Jenna Powell echoes that joy as her crew gears up to paint the town red—in Elf costumes, no less. “Christmas is our family runway,” she laughs. “This year we’re bounding through NYC decked in green and red, and honestly it seems impossible to top that. Still, we have epic gingerbread house showdowns and now we’re welcoming two tiny newborns into the crew. Everything will sparkle at a new level. I can’t wait for the littlest ones to meet the magic we grew up loving, to see the lights and laughter through their fresh eyes!”