The kiss happened before a single camera rolled. On an ordinary night out at a bar, Ashley Bowen leaned in and kissed Chantel Everett, and Chantel pulled away, unsure what she felt. A year later, she married the woman who kissed her, in front of 60 guests at a mansion in Alabama, and left her own wedding by helicopter. This is the year Chantel Everett stopped hiding.
The Kiss Before Tulum
Chantel met Ashley the way nobody in this family meets anyone: through her brother. Ashley was friends with River Everett first, and Chantel has said she met her at one of River’s birthday parties. Before Chantel left to film season 1 of 90 Day: Hunt for Love, the friendship tipped over — Ashley kissed her during a night out at a bar. Chantel pulled back, unsure what it meant. Then she boarded a plane to a singles resort in Tulum, Mexico, to date men the show had lined up for her.
The Confession From the Resort
Tulum was supposed to be Chantel’s fresh start. Instead, she admitted on camera that she had recently shared her first kiss with a woman back home — and that she could not stop thinking about her. From the resort, she called Ashley and asked if they could give it a real shot. Ashley said yes via FaceTime, and at the season’s Tell All the two confirmed they were officially dating. The show had flown her to Mexico to find love. Love was waiting back in Atlanta.
The Tell All: “Clout Chaser” and a Promise
September 2025 is when the secret became a family argument. On the 90 Day: Hunt for Love Tell All, Chantel revealed that she and Ashley were living together. Then her mother, Karen Everett, joined the stage and called Ashley a “clout chaser,” saying she was a worried mom who did not want her daughter hurt again. But asked how she would feel if Chantel and Ashley got married, Karen answered: “I would come to the wedding.” Those words became her mother’s promise, one the whole fandom would later check against the guest list.
The Castle: A Song, a Knee, a Yes
Three months later, Ashley made the promise literal. On December 17, 2025, at Uhuburg, a Renaissance castle in Helen, Georgia, she dropped to one knee and proposed — after singing Chantel an original song. The couple kept the engagement private for six days, announcing it on December 23. By then the story had flipped: the friend her mother had joked she knew before Chantel did was now her fiancée.
The Helicopter and the Honeymoon
On Saturday, October 17, 2026, Chantel married Ashley at Fountainview Mansion in Auburn, Alabama, in front of roughly 60 guests, according to PEOPLE. They exchanged handwritten vows in private, left one chair empty for loved ones who had died, and shared their first dance to “She’s My Handsome” by 76th Street, an all-lesbian band who played live at the reception. Then the newlyweds left by helicopter for a night at the St. Regis in Atlanta, and the next morning Ashley revealed her secret surprise: a honeymoon at Le Blanc Spa Resort in Cancun. On Monday, October 19, Chantel announced the news herself in a video shared on Instagram: “We’re married! … It feels so good to be wives.” The clip, the photos and the new couple name filled her first three weeks as a wife.
YOU MAY LIKEKaren and Thomas Everett: The Marriage That Survived Every Chantel Storm — and the One Wedding Question LeftThe story is not finished, because one question from the Tell All is still unanswered. Karen promised on television that she would come to the wedding — and 23 days after Auburn, neither Karen nor Thomas has publicly confirmed whether they were in the room. If she was there, was the “clout chaser” night forgiven on the spot? If she wasn’t, can this family ever sit at one table again?
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