The Young and the Restless’s Cricket and Danny get married photos

The long wait is officially over. After a 30-year wait, devoted fans of “The Young and the Restless” finally get their wish: Their favorite soap opera supercouple, Cricket and Danny, gives marriage a second chance. The long-awaited wedding will take place on November 21, with a grand reception on November 24.

A last-minute change to a wedding dress would normally send any real bride into a complete, nerve-wracking spin-out. But on “Y&R,” that same adjustment translated into a moment of pure Hollywood inspiration — inspired by Selena Gomez and “Sex and the City.”

“We found this incredible dress that the viewers voted for,” said Lauralee Bell, who has played Cricket since 1983. When the day came to shoot the wedding and reception, the actors and crew worked long, long hours. They realized that Cricket stood and sat a lot, and stood and sat again. At the end of the day, costume designer Mandi Line approached Bell with the idea of ​​a second dress, with Cricket donning a different, more casual and comfortable wedding dress for the reception.

Literally the night before, Bell and Line were talking about Selena Gomez’s wedding and the three beautiful custom Ralph Lauren dresses she wore that big day. It was a light bulb moment. Line happened to already have the perfect dress as a potential candidate, but it wasn’t one of the three specific options that fans voted for. “Mandi said, ‘The fourth dress that we loved so much, that we thought might be a little too casual as a contender, how about we switch to a reception dress?’” Bell recalls. “Mandi said, ‘Go to bed and think about it.’ … It was just a really smart choice. And the fans won’t expect this at all.”

Up until that point, gathering possible clothing choices for fans to choose from had been a time-consuming process. “Number one, it’s about bringing down the silhouettes,” says Line. “Lauralee and I talked about which silhouettes best suited her and her body, which ones Cricket would choose and which ones [Fenmore] would also have in its archives and arsenal. I said to Lauralee, ‘Can we have a Carrie Bradshaw moment?'” Line said of Sarah Jessica Parker’s fashionista “Sex and the City” character. “As a woman who has never been married, I needed a Carrie Bradshaw moment. She says, ‘Girl, do your thing.’ So Lauralee and I went to downtown LA, and we spent a day there, and this is on top of the fact that I already spend time online. We spoke to the clothing designer of Q Bridal. Because they were watching the show, they said, ‘Take what you want.’

Dressing the groom, played by Michael Damian, was a lot easier. “I had six layers of Spanx on. Nobody cares about my Tom Ford tuxedo,” jokes Damian, who tried on the tuxedo and immediately said, “This is it.” The pin on Danny’s lapel is a diamond “C” (for Cricket/Christine).

Fans who have been shipping Cricket and Danny since the ’90s are in for a treat. This couple was always a fan favorite, not least because the actors were real-life teenagers when their friendship grew into love. They married on screen in Maui in 1990, but just five years later a web of actions and lies tore everything apart.

“This shoot is special because it’s been 30 years in the making, so there’s a buzzing excitement to it,” says Damian. “The fans have probably been the most supportive in the world and have stuck with us all these years and haven’t lost faith. And on Friday, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed because there are some really nice surprises. We have some great castmates back, like Patty Weaver (Gina), my sister, and Tricia Cast (Nina), and there’s a lot of really nostalgic dialogue about things related to the past.”

And for those who missed Cricket and Danny’s first wedding, you can watch it this Thanksgiving when CBS airs it again.

There’s something almost fairytale-like about reuniting, reconnecting and remarrying your first love 30 years after your breakup. Neither Cricket nor Danny thought twice about committing to each other again. “First love is more powerful than you can ever imagine, and you always think about that person. Always,” says Bell. “I think they would have always stayed together, except for what happened with Phyllis (who Danny married because he thought she was pregnant with his child) and Paul was a friend who she fell in love with and had a really nice, safe marriage. But when it comes to the one love of your life or the ‘what ifs’, yeah, it’s always Danny.”

Damian doesn’t hesitate to agree. “If you watch clips of Danny, he doesn’t doubt it; he always says, ‘It will happen. We will be together.’ He’s been saying that since day one. He never lost confidence. He just had to convince Cricket.”