Suits' Meghan Markle & Patrick J. Adams film Mike & Rachel's wedding (See the dress!)

For most TV shows, losing two original cast members would be a series-ending crisis. But for Suits, the prospect of saying adieu to stars Patrick J. Adams and Meghan Markle at the end of season 7 presented the long-running legal drama with the perfect opportunity to pull the trigger on something that’s been in the making since former fake lawyer Mike Ross (Adams) told then paralegal Rachel Zane (Markle) he loved her in the show’s pilot. Yes, we’re talking about a wedding! 

EW has your exclusive first look at Mike and Rachel’s nuptials, which will play out over the USA drama’s two-hour season 7 finale (airing April 25 at 9 p.m.). Click through to find out more about Adams and Markle’s big farewell. 

With Adams and Markle leaving the series at the end of season 7, it was finally time for Mike and Rachel to get their fairy-tale ending.

“I was pretty happy with that because I know we do a lot of bittersweet things on the show, and it just felt good to give them a really good send-off,” series creator Aaron Korsh tells EW.

Gabriel Macht, who plays Harvey Specter, adds: “I think Aaron and the writing staff really did a great job with creating this idea of we’re going to finish this romantic story with the most celebratory moment in their lives thus far.”

The wedding also serves as a reward for fans who have followed their characters’ romance for almost seven years. Mike and Rachel have been engaged since season 4 and almost got married in season 5, but they decided to postpone the wedding until after Mike’s release from jail. However, Mike’s been free (and a bona fide lawyer!) for a while now and there’s been little movement toward their big day. 

“We’ve been putting this damn thing off for a while within the show, and we knew it and we wanted to get to it,” says Korsh. “Things always seemed to supersede it, which I think sometimes happens in real life when two people want to get married.” 

In the finale, an unexpected twist forces the wedding to become a priority for Mike and Rachel. 

While the wedding is all about Mike and Rachel, Adams’ departure also means the end of Suits‘ central bromance between Mike and Harvey, the maverick lawyer who hired him — a fact that Adams and Macht were not going to let get lost among the flowers and cake. On the day of production, the actors pitched the idea of adding a classic improvised Mike-Harvey banter scene before the ceremony, which ended up making the cut. 

“We didn’t want it to be so saccharine and just too sentimental,” says Macht, explaining the genesis of the moment. “The way these guys would deal with each other would be to give it to each other right before Mike walks down the aisle.”

“I remember the way it was written there was a nod to Mike and Rachel’s union, but there was also sort of this nod to the best man and maid of honor moving forward,” says Macht. “There’s a bit of mystery with that moment…. It’s so enigmatic, and just the idea that they would be walking down the aisle together, it just seemed like a metaphor for moving forward. Is this where these two are going to end up? Who knows! We don’t know until we get the script.”

“I was totally moved and I felt like the whole sequence does a really good job,” says Korsh. “I’m moved to tears [watching it], and then later I have a lot of joy but I also have sadness that these people are leaving.”

Korsh was blown away by how well everything came together. “When I walked in the room, I was like, ‘This is unbelievable.’ It was just amazing and magical. And there were all these people walking around in tuxedos. It was amazing,” he says. 

It seem as though Donna and Harvey have definitely moved past that post-kiss awkwardness (if the ending of the midseason finale didn’t make that clear enough). 

In addition to Rachel’s parents, you can expect to see a few more familiar faces at the ceremony.