Real-life ‘Parent Trap’: Daughters get divorced parents back together

Some children of divorce might dream of their parents getting back together someday. It’s even the plot of a Disney movie that was so good they rebooted it: In “The Parent Trap,” both the Hayley Mills and the Lindsay Lohan version, two sisters plan in secret to get their divorced parents remarried.

So for sisters Rachel and Caroline Gaede, ages 24 and 20 respectively, their parents’ real-life remarriage after divorce was a reason to celebrate — and the story was too good not to share on social media.

Rachel has posted on TikTok over the last few years about her parents, Julie Shore and Scott Gaede, getting back together gradually. The couple had originally separated in 2014 and divorced about five years later.

As she summarized in a TikTok video, Rachel said that when everyone went on lockdown during the pandemic, mom Shore wanted her and the girls to quarantine strictly so they could see their grandma, who was in her late 90s. Shore told Scott that if he wanted to see the girls, he should quarantine with them.

As they coordinated visits, the two started to repair some of the pain left over from the divorce.

“Friendship is an overstatement, but we became friendly,” Shore told Business Insider.

Here’s Rachel’s TikTok summarizing the story:

While quarantining, the family made videos like this one to send to their relatives during the pandemic:

The couple went from not being thrilled to be around each other to being friends with the same goofy sense of humor. After both of Scott’s parents died, the pair grew even closer.

“Everything from the past fell away and I realized that family was all that mattered and the four of us needed to be together again,” Shore told “Today.”

Eventually, they bought a house together.

As Rachel shared snippets of her parents’ evolving relationship on TikTok over the last few years, viewers became invested, and she now has more than 380,000 followers.

She shared a short video that features photos of the back-together parents being cute together:

And shared her parents doing silly things like jump air-kisses:

And just generally goofing off:

And having an extremely mild on-camera fight:

MORE: Parents have delightful reaction as daughter gives them Christmas gifts they’d wanted as kids

Scott eventually decided to propose again. He even went to Shore’s mom to ask permission; according to the post, she was thrilled because she loves him and said, “It’s about time.”

The girls helped plan the proposal at a downtown Cincinnati restaurant in December 2022. One of Scott’s friends helped make the wedding rings, and Caroline and Rachel got rings with diamonds from their mom’s original engagement ring.

Rachel captured the photos of the engagement.

The pair made it official at the courthouse and then held a ceremony at Memorial Hall in Cincinnati on Dec. 28 with just their daughters and nephew Cameron there.

Cameron, who was a ring bearer in the couple’s first wedding, officiated. Rachel shared old home video of Cameron at age 4 (he’s 28 now, she clarifies) talking about being in Scott and Julie’s wedding:

“Genuinely so surreal getting to be at your own parents wedding … but here we are!! Ten years later and the loveys are officially married!! again!!” Rachel posted.

The family included Julie’s 98-year-old mom, who wasn’t able to come, into the day with the women wearing her necklaces. They also toasted with champagne in glasses from the couple’s first wedding.

Shore’s draped-back dress, which she purchased at a local Ohio store, harkened back to her original wedding dress. She also picked out blue dresses for her daughters to wear to the ceremony.

“I never realized until these comments that y’all are my something blue!!! YAY!” Shore commented on the TikTok video of the girls trying them on.

To which Rachel responded, “We’re your everything.”

Commenting on “The Parent Trap”-like scenario, TikTok users shared how they’d had parents get remarried, both successfully and unsuccessfully, that they wished their parents had gotten back together, or that it would be horrible if their parents ever reunited.

Luckily for the Shore-Gaede family, their parents reuniting has been a good thing.

MORE: Grandkids are surprising their grandparents with sleepovers in wholesome new TikTok trend

The clan is happy to be one again.

“When everything’s been taken away that you thought you would have and you get it back — I wake up every day grateful,” Shore told Business Insider.