Chrishell Stause: Looking back on her dreamy wedding with Justin Hartley
You likely would’ve come across Chrishell Stause as a realtor on the Netflix series Selling Sunset – a millionaire property show that comes with its own fair share of controversies, but as far as Chrishell Stause is concerned, what’s not to love about a sunny personality & a healing smile?
Her demeanour is every bit shiny as a diamond. Life, however, hasn’t been so bright for Stause this year. Early last year, she lost her dad to cancer. Then came a barrage of controversies & sensational headlines as her husband Justin Hartley filed for divorce, and earlier this year she lost her mother to lung cancer.
In a recent announcement, it was revealed that she joined the cohort for Season 29 of Dancing With The Stars, where Stause was quoted as saying, “I feel equal parts excited and completely terrified. It has been a crazy journey and I would have never imagined this is where I would end up.”
Where did things go wrong?
Justin Hartley, of This Is Us fame, was introduced to Stause through a mutual friend back in October 2013. It had seemed, at the time, that they’d found “the one” in each other. Hartley was even quoted as saying, “We met up at a concert and talked all night. I drove her home and called the next day. We haven’t been apart since. I knew right away was like, ‘Oh boy, here we go.’”
The relationship became official soon enough in January 2014. Following this, Stause & Hartley announced their engagement in July 2016 & got married on the 28th of October the following year.
It was a damn fairytale, that wedding. At Malibu’s Calamigos Ranch, they both shone every inch of their stunning selves. Stause looked drop-dead gorgeous in her Monique Lhuillier gown & in the backdrop of the open-air ceremony, her smile lit up the entire setup.
Throwback to the sunny day
The wedding ceremony – covered by People Magazine exclusively at the time – saw Stause walking down the aisle to the beats of Beyonce’s “XO”. As she walked over the petal-strewn path, she gave a hug to Justin’s daughter from his previous marriage, Isabella. It looked like they’d make a loving, modern family.
Stause was quoted as exclaiming, “They don’t make them any better than Justin, and I could not be more thrilled to officially be Mrs. Hartley! The wedding exceeded anything I could have ever imagined.”
The bride & groom had written their own vows, which were exchanged in a beautiful ceremony under a canopy of trees, witnessed by 75 guests. The meal was on-brand too – a meal of roast chicken & prime rib. Then followed the married couple’s first dance to The Contours’ “Do You Love Me”.
The D-word strikes out of the blue
Things were seemingly going great between the two of them. We have the receipts: their joint appearance at the Golden Globes, their mushy Instagram captions, among others things.
Case-in-point: Hartley went all out on social media on their first anniversary, “The best day, the best friends and family, the best wife! Happy first anniversary to my @chrishellhartley!! Let’s do 300 million more!”
This 2018 post didn’t age well, as it turns out. While Stause seemed pretty happy in her relationship, Hartley had other plans. Stause seemed like she was getting ready to grow her family when she was talking to her Selling Sunset co-star Maya Vander.
In the public eye
Hartley infamously filed for divorce in November 2019 citing – as anyone can guess – irreconcilable differences – and noted the date of separation in July. The whole shenanigan blindsided Stause who received the news through a text message; her abject shock & horror is on display for the world to see in season three of Selling Sunset.
You can see her sharing vulnerably, “When I think of marriage, I think you work on things with people. They’re not perfect, no one is. You work on it. You talk about it,” she said. “You don’t go out looking for greener grass. Sometimes you have to water the grass that you have, and that’s what marriage is.”
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It’s just more proof that fairytales don’t exist.
