The minister who married Robin Williams and his third wife Susan Schneider talked about their beautiful wedding day, recalling Williams’s great love for his new wife.

The Rev. Peader Dalton told the Daily Mail Online that he first met Williams at a funeral.

The Irish minister – who is not affiliated to any particular faith — told MailOnline: “Robin and his lovely wife Susan first came into my life about seven years ago. The parents of a young man who worked for Robin on his properties had both died in a tragic car accident and I was officiating the memorial service.

“He said he was particularly touched with my analogy of death being similar to birth,” recalled Dalton. “I had said that when a baby is born they don’t know what they are being born into – but they are being born into a fuller experience of life and love with their families. Death is the same – in my opinion we are not dying – we’re born into another experience that is greater than ourselves and that is an extension of what it is to love and be loved. He was very taken by this analogy and we talked about it for about 10 minutes – just the two of us.”

Robin Williams' widow Susan Schneider is planning a small, private memorial for the actor http://t.co/oKnsG9OXri pic.twitter.com/59iiT5xpg6

— E! Online UK (@EOnlineUK) August 14, 2014

Williams was raised in a Christian home, albeit from different denominations — his father was an Episcopalian and his mother was a Christian Scientist. As for Williams, he was never very forthcoming about his own faith, but Dalton believes Williams embraced Christianity.

“You get a real strong sense of God when you go through rehab,” said Dalton.

Williams never forgot the minister and asked him to officiate his 2011 wedding to Schneider at Meadowood resort in Napa Valley, California.

“The wedding day was very beautiful – they were very much in love and very quiet. Both Robin and Susan were very actively involved with the preparation of the ceremony,” said Dalton. “I like couples to be in the driving seat when it comes to the ceremony and I encourage them to write their own vows and decide how they want the ceremony to be. I remember that Robin was very involved – he didn’t just sit there and nod his head. He had a special request to honor his mother and brother, who had passed away, by having a beautiful prayer – the prayer of St Francis read out. They both wanted to make sure their children were involved too – Robin’s three children and Susan’s two young boys, and were very appreciative that I made that happen.”

Dalton — who currently lives with his wife, Margarita, in Sonoma, California — said the intimate wedding was attended by mostly family and close friends.

“Robin and Susan created their own vows,” he recalls. ‘It was a lovely gathering with people mingling and jingling with each other. They also invited my wife and I to stay for the wedding dinner which was very lovely of them. Usually we just leave 20 minutes or so after the ceremony.”

Robin Williams had Parkinson's when he died, reveals wife http://t.co/fpsQFfTTt4 pic.twitter.com/XTavt6qfIJ

— The Independent (@Independent) August 15, 2014

Like the rest of the world, Dalton was shocked by the sudden death of Williams and the subsequent news that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

“I know that for me and rest of the community round here it came as a shock,” he said. “I have no idea how Robin responded to being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I know it can mean having a horrible last 15 to 20 years of life and if you have other things going on in your life such as depression it may be harder to process it. It could have been an exacerbating factor in his death but we’ll never know. I personally believe Robin has died as a result of depression.”

Dalton acknowledges Williams‘s suicide leaves the world with many questions.

“The great puzzle with the tragic way in which Robin died is how can a person do that to their wife and children? This was a couple that were absolutely in tune with each other – not in a mushy way – just in a very lovely way,” he said. “But you have to remember that depression hits the inner layer of our hearts. When someone is in that world – it’s difficult to see out. People describe it as feeling imprisoned in a dark room with no switch – and in that situation it’s so difficult to think of others. It’s legitimate for his wife and family and indeed others to ask why he did this.”

Image via Wikimedia Commons