Brayden Bowers and Christina Mandrell are officially husband and wife!
On Tuesday, January 21, the Bachelor Nation couple revealed they secretly tied the knot on December 12, 2024. They gave fans a sneak peek at their big day in a wedding video shared via Bachelor Nation’s YouTube page.
“We just got a marriage license. Nobody knows!” Bowers, 26, remarked. Unlike their January 2024 proposal on The Golden Bachelor’s live Golden Wedding special, they wanted to keep this relationship milestone a secret — for a little while, anyway. “Nobody knows about this,” he said, to which Mandrell, 30 added, “Except for the people driving by when we get married in the gazebo.”
The pair said “I do” in a small gazebo in front of a small lake. On the way to their venue, Mandrell filmed Bowers carrying her 8-year-old daughter, Blakely, “like a taco,” as she was not feeling well after they picked her up from school. Luckily, Blakely was a “trooper” and served as the ceremony’s flower girl and videographer. (Mandrell shares Blakely with her ex-husband, Blake Dennis.)
Brayden Bowers and Christina Mandrell’s Relationship Timeline
The couple kept things simple for their intimate wedding, as Mandrell carried white roses they picked up from Target. Mandrell kept warm by sporting a white fur coat over her wedding dress, which featured a large leg slit. She accessorized her bridal look with diamond dangle earrings and a white hair bow. Bowers, for his part, looked dapper in a navy suit and light blue dress shirt.
In their vows, Bowers and Mandrell stated: “As I place this ring on your finger, I give you my promise. From this day forward, I give you all that I am. You’ll never walk alone. I commit my heart and soul to you for all the days of my life.”
The officiant also reminded the two that they would be “holding the hands of your very best friend” from that day forward. “These hands will work alongside yours, building your future. These hands will passionately love you and cherish and will be able to comfort you like no other. … And lastly, these hands, even when they’re wrinkled with age, will still be reaching for yours,” she added.
After being declared husband and wife, Bowers and Mandrell shared their first dance as a married couple next to the gazebo. “It’s the best wedding ever,” Bowers exclaimed in the video.
Bachelor Nation fans met Mandrell on Zach Shallcross’ season 27 of The Bachelor in 2023 and Bowers on Charity Lawson’s season 20 of The Bachelorette later that year. On the December 2023 season 9 finale of Bachelor in Paradise, it was revealed that the two were dating after Bowers’ brief romances with Kat Izzo and Rachel Recchia on the show.
Two months after Bowers got down on one knee during The Golden Wedding special, he and Mandrell sparked wedding rumors after they posed for a wedding-themed photo shoot in March 2024.
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The couple opened up about their decision to have a smaller wedding on Tuesday’s episode of the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast, with Mandrell explaining that a larger celebration would have put the focus on their guests.
“We want the guest experience, like, if we’re doing something, even if we just have people in town staying with us … we want to make sure our undivided attention is with them, making sure everything’s perfect, the napkins are swans and little things like that, which I know how crazy I get about that, and I know that you’re the same way, too,” she stated. “And so, we would probably be attending to them. We love doing that, and that’s the thing. It wouldn’t be a chore, but it’s like, ‘OK, it would be less about us.’ And so, I love the way we did it.”
