Barbecue caterer saves Fort Worth wedding. He married the young couple in minutes.

Patrick “Jube” Joubert is a pitmaster, a restaurant owner and a wedding saver.

If you don’t believe it, ask Sarah Hudgins and Luis Garcia of Fort Worth, or their family and friends.

On July 25, Garcia and Hudgins planned to get married at 11 a.m. at a nice, wedding-decorated home in east Fort Worth, complete with barbecue from Jube’s Smokehouse in Fort Worth. That’s Joubert’s business at 1900 S. Edgewood Terrace.

At 11:50 a.m., a pastor from Little Elm had not arrived.

“I was crying and crying,” Hudgins said Wednesday in a telephone interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I was so stressed..”

That’s when Hudgins’ mother, Patricia Talbot of Fort Worth, walked over to Joubert, also known as the “Smokesman,” and asked if he was an ordained minister.

The 52-year-old Joubert smiled and said yes, having performed at least 200 weddings in his time..

“I did point out that I was wearing shorts and my Jube’s Smokehouse polo shirt, and I didn’t think that was the appropriate clothes for a wedding,” Joubert said Wednesday.

But Talbot didn’t see anything wrong with what Joubert was wearing. She had found the wedding saver.

“Until this wedding, I didn’t know him or Jube’s Smokehouse,” Talbot said.. “I told him, ‘You were sent by God.’”

For the “Smokesman,” weddings have been part of his life for as long as there has been barbecue.

Joubert, who has owned Jube’s Smokehouse since May 2018, was ordained a minister at 17, conducting weddings throughout Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi all these years. Those ceremonies have been at churches, homes, back yards and hotels.

The Arlington man, who is member of Higher Dimensions Fellowship in Grand Prairie, got his latest wedding event call in July, catering barbecue.

On July 25, a Monday and a normal closing day at Jube’s Smokehouse, Joubert had volunteered to come in that day and get the ribs, chicken, brisket, potato salad and mac and cheese ready, and deliver it for about 25 to 30 people who were scheduled to be at the Hudgins-Garcia wedding.

“I had looked for barbecue restaurants all over Fort Worth and I couldn’t find one, but his name kept popping up,” Talbot said. “I finally decided he would be the one to cater the wedding.”

Just as he had stepped out of his vehicle, Joubert got the wedding question. And that came even before the food was unloaded. It turned out that wedding guests helped move the food.

“I started laughing when Patricia asked me,” Joubert said. “Before the service, I walked over to the bride and groom because I figured it would help that I knew them.”

The “Smokesman” even started joking with Hudgins and Garcia.

“I asked them if they still wanted to get married today,” Joubert said. “I kept joking with them because I knew it had been a long day for them.”

Within 10 minutes, Joubert married the couple

“I’ve learned there is no need to make the wedding long,” he said.

Joubert noted that the July 25 wedding was his first one that included being the barbecue caterer.

And, the pitmaster says he is ready to do both, again.

“He showed up,” Hudgins said. referring to the “Smokesman.” “It turned out to be a beautiful day.”