Audience members participate in a same sex wedding during a performance of Same Love by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis at the 56th annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014, in Los Angeles.Matt Sayles/The Associated Press
There were several must-see moments on Sunday night's Grammys show – including Taylor Swift's awkward dancing, a Beatles semi-reunion and multiple podium visits by French dance duo Daft Punk – but Twitter feedback reveals it was the group wedding that took the cake.
Reuters Canada reports that the wedding service that married 33 couples – a good percentage of them same-sex partners – only came off because organizers employed a casting service and kept the event top secret until the day of broadcast.
For those who missed it, the couples were wed during the performance of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's soulful Same Love that took place during the Grammy show's final hour.
The marriages were officiated by Queen Latifah. Madonna, who wore a spiffy all-white suit with matching white cowboy hat and cane to assist Same Love's featured vocalist, Mary Lambert, deliver the song's earnest lyrics. (Madonna also managed to include a few bars of her 1986 hit Open Your Heart.)
Following the live broadcast, Neil Portnow, president and CEO of the Grammy organizing body, the Recording Academy, described the ceremony as "elegant, powerful and meaningful as we wanted it to be."
Portnow also revealed that the group wedding was achieved by hiring a casting service to find couples that were willing to wed during the song and in front of millions of TV viewers.
Although Grammy organizers did their best to keep details of the TV nuptials under wraps, The New York Times spilled the beans on Sunday with a story that said 34 couples would be married during the Grammys telecast. It's unknown whether one of the couples pulled out at the last minute.
But how effective was the Grammys group wedding toward the cause of tolerance? Based on celebrity Twitter response, it was a beautiful thing.
In fact, the Grammys were still on the air when Queen Latifah (@IAMQUEENLATIFAH) tweeted: "Alright tweeps … I did not enter into this lightly, but I entered into it fully… with love."
As did the openly gay actor Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH), who appeared on the Grammys broadcast and issued his stamp of approval for the group wedding with the tweet: "My face hurts from smiling … Much much love. Well done, Grammys."
Likewise for TV personality and The Tonight Show fixture Ross Mathews (@helloross), who tweeted, "That #Grammy moment was a game changer. Amazing."
Ditto for actor Wanda Sykes (@iamwandasykes), who tweeted, "Congrats to all the lovely couples!"
And talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, in advance of helming the Oscars telecast, kept it simple with her comment "SameLove was incredible" on her Twitter page.
Not everyone in the United States supports same-sex marriage, and at least one social media user lashed out at the group wedding immediately after the Grammys on CBS's Facebook page with the comment, "The Grammy Awards were good until you had the mass wedding … I don't care what the gay people do but don't push their lifestyle on others to watch. That was a disgrace!"
But, of course, haters are going to hate no matter what.
Isn't it more important to take note that the group wedding inspired the brawny movie star Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, to go on Twitter to post his heartfelt observation, "That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen on TV."
It's been a half-century since Bob Dylan released his song The Times They Are a-Changin'. It seems his prophecy is finally coming true.