By Madoline Markham Koonce
For many, the day of the solar eclipse in August 2017 might have brought back memories of wearing paper glasses and looking up at the sun.
For TV news journalists Jack Royer and Lillian Askins Lalo, it was a day to return to their old stomping grounds at Mountain Brook Junior High School to speak to Sharon Flowers’ broadcasting class – a class they each had taken as students six years apart.
Little did they know when they met that day how TV ties in Birmingham would bring them together again in far more significant ways – and eventually to share wedding vows.
Fast forward to December 2021. Jack, who is the son of longtime Birmingham news anchor Mike Royer, was working as an anchor on the morning news show at CBS 42. Lillian was going through the darkest time of her life after losing her husband, Chris – who, after years battling mental health struggles, took his life in August 2021. When she had the opportunity to fill in as traffic anchor on that same morning show, she took it.
At the time, she was focused on her 3-year-old son, Michael, and working on the show. She and Jack became friends and encouraged each other in their work.
With time, their care for one another grew. After Jack moved to Tampa for a job as a weekend news anchor at an NBC station and Lillian took Jack’s former job as an anchor at CBS 42, they began dating long distance.
Their dating routine was far from conventional as Lillian was working 3 a.m. to noon and Jack was working 2-11 p.m. one time zone away. Jack would often take a direct Southwest flight from Tampa to Birmingham on a weekday morning and let Lillian nap after her shift while he picked up Michael from school for “guy time,” and the three of them would be together for two days before Jack flew back to Tampa.
Eventually, the two knew they wanted to marry.
One day in March 2023, Lillian came home from work to find Michael at the door.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. “I have a surprise for you.”
She walked in to find balloons floating and Frank Sinatra’s music playing. Jack got down on one knee to propose with an oval cut diamond ring from Bromberg’s while Michael ran around with a balloon, excited to be a part of the day.
Sweet, Personal Ceremony
From the start, the couple envisioned a wedding that would be intimate and simple.
“I wanted it to be small and sweet and have nothing come between us focusing on what we are doing, which is getting married,” Lillian recalled.
And so, on Sept. 22, they married surrounded by their immediate families overlooking the city of Birmingham outside the Inn Room at The Club. The minister from Michael’s school, the Rev. Madison Roberts of Mountain Brook Presbyterian, officiated, and their family tossed confetti as the service ended. Michael served as the ring bearer – a job he took very seriously.
Lillian, who grew up watching her interior designer mother and architect uncle, planned details for the wedding that, in Jack’s words, made it “magical.” OnSite Productions added draperies to the ceremony site to create an elegant atmosphere, and Celebrate Birmingham installed large white and gold balloons to add whimsy for a co*cktail reception that followed.
Lillian wore a simple knee-length dress with bell sleeves and arranged the flowers herself the day of the wedding. She carried white, pink, red and yellow blooms from Costco to create a “breezy, happy” vibe.
Jack’s mom, Amy, who previously owned a cake business, baked a gluten-free white wedding cake, in a nod to Lillian’s dietary habits, that their friends raved about. For the co*cktail reception, hors d’oeuvres, champagne and drinks were passed, and John Hollingsworth played acoustic guitar music.
To add a personal touch, Lillian designed a logo with “The Royers” in a script that looked similar to The Club’s logo and ordered matchbooks, a gold sign and acrylic drink tabs with the logo from Etsy. A store in Tampa also made custom cigars with the logo that Jack smoked with a handful of friends at the end of the night.
Neither Lillian nor Jack found the day stressful, and they felt they got to visit with the people who came.
“It wasn’t about Instagram, it was about the relationship,” Lillian said.
Because the wedding was on a Friday night, they were able to make it to the Ole Miss-University of Alabama game the next day – Lillian is an Ole Miss grad and Jack a UA grad – before leaving on a honeymoon Jack planned in Santa Barbara, California.
Since then, Jack has started a new job as a weekend anchor at WSVN in Miami, a station he had watched for years knowing it was a model used around the country for news stations. He and Lillian have started a new chapter of their lives, this time living in the same city.
Birmingham will always be home for them, though, as well as the place where their stories converged.
“There’s no way we could have predicted it and I don’t think either of us ever would have wished for the things that have happened, but to get to know her in this way has been the greatest gift of my life,” Jack said.
