Twenty-nine years ago, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick surprised 100 unsuspecting guests with a wedding nobody saw coming. Today, they are still going strong.
The couple marks their 29th wedding anniversary on May 19, 2026, a milestone that feels both remarkable and perfectly fitting for two people who have always done things on their own terms.
GettyFrom a chance Broadway introduction in the early 1990s to three children, countless red carpets, and nearly three decades of real, grounded partnership, theirs is one of Hollywood’s most touching love stories.
Here is a look back through the years with rarely seen photos.
How Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick Found Each Other Through Broadway
GettyThe path to Matthew Broderick ran, as so many good things in Parker’s life have, straight through the theater.
GettyIn the early 1990s, Parker’s brothers Toby and Pippin co-founded a Broadway theater company called Naked Angels.
Broderick, already a celebrated stage and screen actor best known for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” became involved with the company and was introduced to Parker through that connection.
GettyIt was a meeting of two people who shared exactly the same dream.
Getty“Matthew and I come from a different time and place. When we were young people, all we ever wanted was to be good working actors. We didn’t think of fame or money because, honestly, money was never part of the dream,” Parker told Harper’s Bazaar in 2013.
“It was to work in theater, to be around those people whose work I was in total awe of.”
Parker had her own theater roots running deep.
GettyShe had earned her first major break as a teenager, playing the title role in “Annie” on Broadway, and the stage had shaped everything she understood about her craft.
GettyWhen Broderick finally worked up the courage to call, he immediately made an impression.
“He left a very charming, very self-effacing message on the machine,” Parker recalled to The New York Times in 1996. “You know, ‘Hi, it’s Matthew Broderick.’ You had to use your last name.”
Their first date was simple. They went to see a movie.
GettyBut for Broderick, that evening was anything but forgettable. “I do remember first meeting her,” he said in 2012, as quoted by E! News.
“I still remember very clearly seeing her walk down the street toward the movie theater. It’s very unique, because I wouldn’t remember most people the first time I saw them come down the street. I remember it as clear as day.”
GettyParker was equally smitten from the start.
“He’s so bright, so handsome, I think he’s the most handsome man I’ve seen in my life,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1996. “And he inspires me. I’m mad for him, totally.”
The Surprise Wedding That Nobody Saw Coming
GettyWhen Parker and Broderick decided to marry, they did it in a way that was entirely, perfectly them.
On May 19, 1997, the couple gathered around 100 guests at a Lower East Side synagogue in New York City, telling nobody what was actually about to happen, as reported by Brides.
Guests arrived expecting a regular party. They left having witnessed a wedding.
Parker completed the surprise by wearing a black gown by designer Morgane Le Fay rather than the traditional white dress most brides choose.
She has always been clear about why.
“I never thought about a wedding dress. Never. Had not one daydream about it,” she told People in 2018.
“At one point I just simply remember thinking, ‘God, I really hope he asks me to marry him.’ I don’t know when or why. It was fairly early on.”
Parker has also shared a rather endearing memory from their early courtship.
During what she described as perhaps their second kiss, she had a cough drop in her mouth and made a snap decision.
“It was outside an apartment building,” she told Andy Cohen in 2022.
Getty“Maybe our second kiss ever, I had a Ricola in my mouth. It was the dead of winter, and I thought — well, it just seemed like a third party. So I spit it out into my gloved hand because I was getting on the subway. It was stuck on my glove. It made a sort of mark forever.”
When Cohen asked when she knew Broderick was the one, her answer was immediate. “Fairly soon after I met him,” she said.
Three Children and Nearly Three Decades: The Family Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick Built Together
GettyMarriage brought children, and with them, a life that Parker and Broderick have always deliberately kept grounded.
Their son James Wilkie Broderick arrived on October 28, 2002, five years into their marriage. Twin daughters Tabitha Hodge Broderick and Marion Loretta Elwell Broderick followed, born via surrogate.
Parker has spoken openly about the journey to expand their family.
Getty“We tried and tried and tried and tried to get pregnant,” she told Vogue in 2010. “But it just was not to be, the conventional way. I would give birth as often as I could, if I could. I cherished all the milestones, the good and the bad.”
GettyDespite the fame and the spotlight, the couple made a conscious decision to raise their children as normally as possible.
“We painted our patio furniture ourselves. I make my children’s food myself,” Parker told Vogue.
“We put together their high chairs ourselves; we do a lot ourselves. We do our own grocery shopping, we go to the market ourselves, you know? I do my laundry.”
The couple also shares a deep theatrical bond that has extended into their professional lives.
They starred opposite each other in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway, and more recently, Broderick appeared alongside their son James Wilkie in a production of “Plaza Suite.”
GettyAs for the secret to 29 years together, Parker has always kept it simple.
“One of the reasons we’ve had success is because we don’t talk about our marriage,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2022.
Getty“I’m not flattering myself that anyone’s discussing my marriage, but we’re certainly not going to add to it by saying, ‘Well, this is why it works.’ Next thing you know, there’ll be a very public divorce. So we just try to respect each other.”
Twenty-nine years in, that approach seems to be working just fine.
