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Maria Shriver had 'many emotions' watching daughter marry Chris Pratt

As the mother of the bride, Shriver said daughter Katherine Schwarzenegger's wedding sparked a mixture of excitement and sadness.
/ Source: TODAY

Maria Shriver is dishing on daughter Katherine Schwarzenegger’s wedding to Chris Pratt, even if she wasn’t supposed to.

While filling in for Hoda Kotb on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna on Monday, Maria talked about the big day, despite Schwarzenegger urging her to remain mum about it.

“She’s like, ‘Don’t say anything. Don’t say where I am. Don’t say what it was like. Don’t speak,’ Maria said. "I was like I actually am a person, too. I actually had an experience, as well and can speak about my own experience.”

Maria obliged and didn’t use her name, but she did fill in viewers about how she felt watching her daughter exchange vows.

“As a mother, you go through many emotions, right, so you’re trying to be both excited, you get a new member of your family, you’re kind of losing your child as they were,” she said. “So you’re kind of excited and everybody’s like, ‘Well, isn’t this great?’ You’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ but it’s also kind of sad and it’s kind of strange and so you’re learning, as I said, to hold all of these multiple emotions simultaneously.”

Maria, who has three other children with ex-husband Arnold Schwarzenegger, says weddings are a good time for people to reflect on where they are in their own lives.

“I found it so interesting to talk to people about how everybody when they watch a couple devote themselves to each other, they’re going through their own life experience with that," she said. "You know, my 21-year-old’s like, ‘I’m so far from that,’ right? My 28-year-old daughter, her friends are like, ‘I think I want that, I don’t know if I want that. Am I in that? Oh, better not. Better break up, better find something.’ There’s all of this going on.”

And while people may have different feelings at a wedding, Maria knows there is one constant.

“Love is this great unifier," she said. "Everybody looks at love and goes, “You know, I want that.” It’s so great. So that’s the kind of big takeaway, how incredible love is, how it can change your life, how it can make you feel on top of the world. And that if you don’t have it, it can make you feel like ‘Ugh’ or it can make you feel just really happy for the other person. Everybody’s having their own experience and I had all of that.”

Maria does have one regret about her daughter’s big day, though. She said she wished she talked to her mother about how she felt watching her walk down the aisle.

“What was she going through? I have no clue. And I was sad that I never kind of took a moment, so you should ask your mom actually what was that like for her?" she told Jenna. "What did she feel? And so you can remember it when your children go to get married.”