In the year 2000, Fr. Drennen moved out to Los Angeles, California and stayed there for seven years. Living in “The Entertainment Capital of the World” he managed to meet or see a lot of people that most of the population only dreams of meeting. He has seen all manners of television and music stars, but one person that he knew better than any other celebrity is Gwen Stefani. It turns out that he married her to her husband in the Catholic Church!

I heard the story a few years ago while taking his class but wanted to find out more information, so I had the chance to interview Fr. Drennen and ask him a few questions about his experience with a rock star.

Q. How did you meet Gwen Stefani?

Fr. Drennen: She was a parishioner. She actually was a church goer. She did not go every Sunday but she would come enough that kids in the school would stop and say ‘did you see Gwen Stefani?’ I didn’t even know who Gwen Stefani was. She went to church some Sundays with her mother whenever she came to visit. Gwen lived two or three blocks from the Parish.

One day I got a call from her mother saying that her daughter is a celebrity and wants to get married with a catholic priest. But she couldn’t get married without giving a name so eventually the manager called. Usually the couple comes to the rectory to talk but I was generous and offered to go to her house; mainly because I wanted to see her house. They had a really nice home. It was only four blocks. They did not have a ‘mansion’ but they had a very nice home.

She actually wanted to get married in an Anglican church because her husband is from England and is Anglican. His name is Gavin Rossdale from the band Bush. She wanted to have a whole separate Catholic wedding. After she kept asking me, I called the diocese and they said ‘sure why not’. So I was going to have a small wedding for her and her parents. That was all that was going to be there. But because things spread in Hollywood, word got out about an L.A. wedding and a ton of people wanted to come. So they had an outdoor wedding at her record producer’s house and it was the third wedding in a week! One Saturday they were in London, that Thursday they were at my parish in Los Angeles and then two days later they had a wedding. The last wedding is where I met all of the celebrities. They invited me to stay at the wedding and I sat at the table with them. I met his parents as well.

Actually two years later they called me up and said that they had a baby. They wanted me to do the Baptism. So I went back out to do it. They moved to J-Lo’s old house so I was happy to visit them there.

Q: Was that the biggest wedding you have ever done?

Fr. Drennen: This was the biggest celebrity wedding. There were a lot of outside people. That actual catholic wedding was the simplest one I have ever done. The public one however had to have around 300 to 400 people. I was not treated like I normally would have been at the big wedding. It was very organized so people were placed and I was just placed somewhere. But I was placed next to Gavin so we talked for about an hour because Gwen was late. I got to know him pretty well.

She is so sweet. She kept saying “I can’t believe this is my life. I can’t believe I am having three weddings.” On stage she has a big rock personality but meeting her quietly she is just like the girl next door. She does not hang with the music crowd often. She kind of goes her own way and she is not really mixed up in that.

Q: I remember hearing something about her being divorced. Is that true?

Fr. Drennen:  I did hear they were divorced, but she called up in September and they were celebrating their 10th anniversary. They asked if I could come back and do a ceremony for them, but I could not fly to California for a weekend. I had important things here. It was very cool to have done this though.

So there you have it. Our own Fr. Drennen has been hanging around with celebrities. He is the man.