Gwyneth Paltrow Reveals How She Paid Tribute to Her Late Father Bruce During Her Lavish Second Wedding

When Gwyneth Paltrow married Brad Falchuk last fall on September 29, she had the whole event planned down to the tiniest detail, including the exact spot where she wanted to get married. While recently appearing on Dax Shepard‘s Armchair Experts podcast, the 46-year-old actress revealed that she got married next to a “beautiful tree” outside her Hamptons, New York home because that’s where her father’s ashes are buried.

“For years, I would go into kind of the deepest depression of all time around my birthday and then I thought, ‘I’ve got to reframe this somehow. My father would not want this for me,’” she recalled on the show. “My birthday is September 27 and so this past September, I got married on the 29th of September. His ashes are buried under this beautiful tree at my house and we got married there — right near my dad … kind of on my dad. [Laughs]”

Gwyn’s father, Bruce Paltrow, sadly died a few days after her birthday at age 58 on October 3, 2002, while he was vacationing in Rome, Italy. He passed away from pneumonia after suffering from oral cancer for seven years. “I still have a hard time with it,” Gwyn confessed. “He was such an intentional father, and he was so observant and so deeply supportive and set us up to win all the time.”

Being a mom to two teen kids has made Gwyneth realize that she needs her father now more than ever. “Now I have a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son and I’m like, ‘F–k, I need to call my dad. I need to talk to my dad,'” she said. “And I don’t have that person. I have incredible people in my life, but I don’t have their grandfather, who was also the greatest father in the world.”