David Henrie is opening up about why he wasn’t able to attend Selena Gomez’s wedding, and the thoughtful advice he shared with her before her big day.
The Wizards of Waverly Place actor, who now stars alongside Gomez again in Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, explained during an appearance on the Zach Sang Show on Wednesday, Oct. 8, that work commitments kept him from being there.
“Unfortunately, no,” Henrie said when asked if he made it to Gomez and Benny Blanco’s September 27 wedding.
“I’m about to announce a project that I was out of state on, and there was no way I can get back. I literally tried every single way to try to get back.”
He added, “Breaks my heart.”
Henrie had previously told Parade magazine in August that he was “100%” planning to attend and was “very excited” for the California ceremony, unless family or work took him away.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.
Before the wedding, Henrie and his wife, Maria Cahill, spent time chatting about the event and all its details, from “the dress” to “the planning.”
Even though he couldn’t be there in person, he still made sure to share one piece of heartfelt advice with Gomez and Blanco.
“The best advice I got right before my wedding, someone pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey dude, hold your wife’s hand and take like a solid minute and just look around the room. Look at your wife and go, ‘This is our minute,’ and look around the room and just remember,’” Henrie said, recalling his own 2017 wedding.
“To this day, that’s like my one memory from my wedding, is that moment.”
He said he passed that same advice on to Gomez, adding, “Take a moment to just take it in ’cause everyone’s going to be coming up to her and everyone’s going to be saying hi, pulling her in every direction. I hope they did that.”
In a previous interview with PEOPLE in September, Henrie shared that he and Cahill had spoken with Gomez and Blanco about wedding planning as the couple prepared for their big day.
“Because [there’s] so many different ways to go with a wedding these days, and so much that goes into it that [you’ve] got to know what you want,” he explained.
Though Henrie couldn’t make it, several of his Wizards of Waverly Place costars were there to celebrate the happy couple, including Maria Canals-Barrera, David DeLuise, and Jennifer Stone.
