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Christina Perri approves of Twilight fans using her hit track as their wedding song.

On the Thursday, March 6, episode of The Nikki & Brie Show, the singer-songwriter, 38, joined hosts Nikki and Brie Garcia on their podcast and detailed the evolution of her song “A Thousand Years,” from The Twilight Saga soundtrack smash to a popular wedding song to a beloved lullaby.

Perri wrote “A Thousand Years” for the vampire romance series’ penultimate film, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, in 2011.

“I really was a Twilight fan. I have to admit I was more of a Twihard. I was, like, a hardcore fan,” Perri said. “So I will not deny that, but I wrote this song for the movie and it was very specific. It was like, you know, you go in, you screen the film. They were like, ‘We need a song for the wedding scene.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, great.’ I made it a waltz.”

Christina Perri performs onstage during Audacy's Leading Ladies 2024 at Kings Theatre on March 20, 2024 in Brooklyn, New York.
Christina Perri.Manny Carabel/Getty

Her song was chosen, but not for the wedding. Instead, it was played during the credits.

“This is still the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me ever because it’s [one of] my favorite books, my favorite movies,” she said of the saga, which is based on the book series by author Stephenie Meyer, and stars Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan, Taylor Lautner as werewolf Jacob Black and Robert Pattinson as vampire Edward Cullen.

In 2012, the year The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 released, fans said they wanted the song to be in the final movie because they “loved” how it represented the tortured love story between Bella and Edward.

“The fans were like, ‘Oh, hey, we know that Christina Perri is a Twihard, and so we want this song.’ I feel like they knew, because there was a Bruno Mars song that was on the radio, but then I feel like they were like, ‘We know Bruno isn’t a Twihard.’ And so, like, they swapped out and they put my song on the radio as a single for the film,” Perri explained. “And I was like, ‘Wow. That’s really cool.'”

This led to Perri creating a longer and orchestral, duet version of the song with her then-boyfriend Steve Kazee.

“I thought maybe that was it,” Perri said. She was wrong.

“Then all the people who love Twilight started to get married,” she continued. “This is all just, like, in real time. And then they chose it as a wedding song. So then all of a sudden, this song is not so much about Twilight anymore, and it’s the song that everybody’s walking down the aisle to, everybody’s doing their first dance to. And I’m like, well, that’s really cool.”

SPEAKING OF WEDDING
Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart).Summit

As the fanbase has grown, the song has too.

“This song just keeps living its own life and evolving,” Perri said. “And so, for, I don’t know, for the next ten years, everybody gets married to it. And what comes after marriage, but everybody starts having babies.”

The “Jar of Hearts” singer — who authored a children’s book titled A Thousand Years, inspired by her song of the same name — said the track is now a lullaby that resonates with new parents.

“Then all of a sudden, because everyone got married to my music, they’re having babies at the same time as me,” said Perri, who shares daughters Pixie Rose and Carmella Stanley with husband Paul Costabile. “Now they’re playing my lullabies to all their kids. So all of a sudden, I’m like this voice in their story, in like some of the most amazing moments of their lives.”

Perri is “grateful” and “honored” to play a special role in people’s milestones.

“It just was the most natural progression, I have to say,” she said. “Like, it’s just the gift that keeps on giving. Like, this song has its own life.”

Perri will always remember the roots of the song. She’s still very much a fan of Bella, Edward and Jacob.

“They are my people! …Any time they’re ever on TV, you know I’m not changing the channel,” she told PEOPLE in March 2024. “Any hotel I go to, I’m passing through, and it’s on? I’m like, ‘It’s a must!’”