Brayden Bowers and Christina Mandrell Elope 1 Year After Proposal at the ‘Golden Wedding’

Another Bachelor Nation couple has made it down the aisle! Brayden Bowers and Christina Mandrell surprised fans by eloping nearly one year after their surprise engagement on The Golden Bachelor’s live Golden Wedding special.

“We just got a marriage license. Nobody knows!” Brayden, 26, said in a video posted via Bachelor Nation’s YouTube page on Tuesday, January 21.

“Engagement was much different, everybody knew,” Christina, 30, added. “Nobody is going to know, except the people driving by.”

The pair revealed they secretly tied the knot on December 12, 2024, in a gazebo decorated with red ribbons in front of a small lake.

The ceremony was casual, with The Bachelor alum revealing she purchased her bouquet of roses from a nearby Target. She wore a white fur coat over her wedding dress, which featured a high leg slit. Meanwhile, her future husband looked classic in a navy suit and light blue dress shirt.

Christina’s 8-year-old daughter, Blakely, whom she shares with her ex-husband, Blake Dennis, served as the ceremony’s flower girl and videographer.

“As I place this ring on your finger, I give you my promise,” the couple said as they recited their vows. “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.”

Although Christina and Brayden both appeared on different seasons of the Bachelor franchise, they actually met offscreen. Christina first competed for Zach Shallcross‘ heart on The Bachelor season 27 in 2023, while Brayden vied for Charity Lawson‘s affection on The Bachelorette season 20 later that same year.

It wasn’t until December 2023, after Brayden’s appearance on Bachelor in Paradise season 9, that the couple confirmed they were dating.

“She actually DM’ed me! She slid in my DM’s and it was funny ’cause we started hitting it off,” Brayden revealed ahead of The Golden Wedding in January 2024. “We would FaceTime every night for, like, four [or] five hours, and one night we started talking and I made a Tenacious D reference … and this woman right here was like, ‘Did you make a reference to Tenacious D?’”

Although Brayden was surprised to learn that Christina was familiar with the band led by Jack Black, she cleverly used it as a segue to suggest plans for their first date.

“She was like, ‘Well, I know I had tickets to this concert next week,’” Brayden recalled.

The pair opened up about why they decided to have a smaller wedding during an appearance on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast, where the mom of one said a larger celebration would have taken the focus off themselves.

“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 during the Tuesday, January 21 episode. “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.”