To tell this story, you first need to understand three cultural touchstones.
First, the Broadway juggernaut “Hamilton,” which, at 10 years old, remains a force. Second, the inescapable song of the summer, “Espresso,” by Sabrina Carpenter. And third, a “Saturday Night Live” sketch riffing on “Espresso” about a guy named Domingo. (Ariana Grande plays a maid of honor who reveals that the bride had an affair with a man named Domingo on her bachelorette trip.)
What do all these things have in common? Great question. The answer is, quite possibly, the Jornsay-Silverberg sisters.
In a recently released behind-the-scenes video, the “Saturday Night Live” writers Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O’Sullivan discussed their inspiration for the beloved Domingo sketch.
“There is a video of a girl at her sister’s wedding doing a speech and she does a ‘Hamilton’ rap,” Mr. Fowlie said. “If you’re that girl and you’re seeing this, I can’t even tell you how much joy the video’s brought me. I’m so glad you did it, because it inspired this.”
On TikTok, Julia Jornsay-Silverberg, a 35-year-old social media marketer who lives in Buffalo, wondered if Mr. Fowlie might be talking about her wedding last August.
During the reception, her older sister, Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg, 40, had given a toast that would be hard to forget. In what eventually became a widely-shared video of its own, she performed a parody of the song “Satisfied” from “Hamilton,” swapping out the lyrics about the founding father to lines about her younger sister and her husband and their lives.
In a phone interview with both sisters on Friday, Julia Jornsay-Silverberg said she was thoroughly surprised by the toast. She had been warned that her sister would need more than five minutes, and that her speech involved music, but she had no idea what was about to happen when her sister cranked up the music and began to rap.
The sisters first heard the original song, which in the stage show is performed as a wedding toast from an older to younger sister, back in 2018. They said they burst into tears at the line “I know my sister like I know my own mind.” It was a perfect tribute.
Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg, who lives in Lisbon and owns a graphic design business, said writing parody songs is a longtime passion of hers, and she often pens tunes to honor friends and family for big life events. Among her greatest hits is “My Dad Lee” to the tune of “Let It Be,” which she performed for Father’s Day, complete with ukulele accompaniment.
To be sure, they are not the only set of sisters to use the “Hamilton” song at a real life wedding. On YouTube, you’ll find several other women who have performed their own renditions about their beloved brides. (There’s a video entitled “Satisfied (The Greatest Maid of Honor Speech of All Time)” with 19,000 views and another called “Maid of Honor Speech: Hamilton Style!” with 28,000 views.)
“I’d seen one video and then I was like: ‘These are all going to influence me. I just need to go from the heart.’ And I did,” Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg said.
But few of the other videos had the reach of the one from the Jornsay-Silverberg sisters, which has been viewed more than 1.5 million times on TikTok. The online reaction to the post, which has been liked more than 283,000 times, was surprisingly warm, given the cultural penchant for dunking on grown-up theater kids. (The sisters describe themselves as being from a “Broadway family.”) Even the actress Renée Elise Goldsberry, the original vocalist of “Satisfied” who won a Tony Award for “Hamilton,” left a complimentary comment.
The sisters, who said they are also regular “Saturday Night Live” watchers, didn’t think anything of the Domingo sketch when they first saw it toward the end of 2024, and representatives from NBC did not respond to a message seeking to confirm if the Jornsay-Silverbergs were Mr. Fowlie’s inspiration.
“Never in a million years did I think it was inspired by something that Jimmy saw in a viral TikTok video that my sister posted from her wedding,” Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg said.
Still, they were delighted to learn they might have inspired the sketch.
“We need a confirmation,” the sisters said, laughing.
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