Plot Twist: Selling Sunset‘s Mary & Romain Legally Married Months Before Their TV Wedding

Season two of Netflix real estate reality series Selling Sunset was marked with drama from all sides, and star agent Mary Fitzgerald often found herself in the centre of it. When Fitzgerald wasn’t selling houses or fighting with frenemy Christine Quinn, she was busy planning her dream wedding to fiancé Romain Bonnet. The wedding was success, but as it turns out, it was more of a symbol than a legally binding ceremony — the pair had secretly tied the knot more than a year before the nuptials took place.

A source close to Fitzgerald and Bonnet revealed to People that the wedding that Fitzgerald so carefully planned throughout the second season of the show was actually the cherry on top of a civil union that had been established months before the event happened. According to the source, the couple had quietly gone before a Ventura County judge in March 2018 to enter into a civil union so that they could work on their relationship before taking the official leap into married life.

"Mary and Romain had a civil union a couple of months before the show began filming in June of 2018," Fitzgerald's representative told People. "But they chose not to tell any of their friends or family, as they were still trying to see if their relationship would work out in the long term."

The wedding itself took place on 12th October 2019. Fitzgerald's friends and co-workers — except Bonnet's arch-nemesis Davina Portratz, of course — joined the lovebirds at the picturesque French-style estate (also one of Fitzgerald's listings). Save for some standard pettiness from some of the Selling Sunset cast members, the big day went off without a hitch.

"It was our dream wedding," Fitzgerald previously shared with People of the celebration. "Neither of us are big, showy kind of people, and we just wanted the people closest to us, where it just felt sincere and comfortable. So that's what we did."

Fitzgerald and Bonnet are now technically three years deep into their life as life partners. Doing a trial run of marriage before heading to the altar so people won't get in your business — maybe that's the secret formula.