Jill Martin is a married woman!
The TODAY contributor and “Steals & Deals” host tied the knot with her longtime love Erik Brooks on Sept. 10 at the New York Public Library.
To help everyone at the wedding stay present, Martin requested no photos or social media at the event. However, now that the big day has happened, she’s shared several photos from the nuptials with TODAY.
The pics show the happy couple beaming at one another and sharing a couple of kisses. They also offer a peek at the two gorgeous white gowns Martin wore on the big day.
For the ceremony, Martin, 46, asked someone very special to officiate: her father, Marty.
Back in March, she revealed she’d asked the retired criminal defense attorney to get ordained just so he could play an important role in her big day.
“My dad is the funniest person I know — so although my mother will likely cry throughout the ceremony, there will definitely be lots of laughs!” she told TODAY Parents in a text message at the time.
Marty did more than officiate the event. He also joined Martin’s mother, Georgette, in walking the bride down the aisle.
Like any traditional bride, Martin decided to incorporate something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue into her wedding day. Before walking down the aisle, the bride-to-be announced that she was borrowing something blue from her mom.
“My mother gave me her garter that was blue from her wedding, which I’ll be wearing. And this is her wedding ring,” she said during an appearance on the 3rd hour of TODAY on August 26.
At the reception, when it came to the wedding cake, guests were treated to an unexpected offering. The bride selected a personal favorite for the party, a sea of Carvel’s Fudgie the Whale ice cream cakes.
And in lieu of gifts, Martin and Brooks asked guests to donate to help fund the tuition for an 18-year-old named Samantha, who Martin came to know about through her work on the advisory board of the Garden of Dreams Foundation.
Samantha, who wasn’t able to consistently attend classes due to her struggles with ulcerative colitis, has dreams of becoming a journalist. She was already awarded partial scholarships from both Fordham University and from Garden of Dreams, and now the happy couple hopes the rest of her expenses will be covered, too.
During Martin’s August visit to the 3rd hour of TODAY, she got emotional while thinking about her upcoming nuptials.
“I’m so grateful. We have both of our parents and everyone’s healthy and everyone’s just so excited, and we’re just so in love and happy to be back together,” she said.
The couple first started dating in 2017 and got engaged two years later. In 2020, they broke off their engagement, citing the challenges of being in a long-distance relationship. The following year, Martin and Brooks reunited and got re-engaged in November 2021.
In April, Martin shed some light on the events that led to the couple’s initial breakup. During a TODAY All Day special titled “The New Rules for Finding Love,” she said they were “fighting all the time” when the pandemic hit.
“I was not picking my battles — and I’m not blaming myself, OK? But my stuff at that time and his stuff did not match up, and I wasn’t willing to change the way I reacted to the stuff, my strategy, to accommodate,” she said at the time.
After getting re-engaged, Martin penned an essay for TODAY about her romantic journey and explained how spending an extended period of time alone helped her build a stronger relationship with Brooks the second time around.
“Everyone’s journey is different,” she wrote. “It took me 45 years to find my fairy tale. When I realized I was confident on my own, that’s when I knew Erik and I were ready to get back together. The realistic version of my fairy tale was ready to be written.”
