Emily Ratajkowski “Vetted” Sebastian Bear-McClard for Two Years Before Their Secret Courthouse Wedding
On a low-key Friday afternoon in February of this year, Emily Ratajkowski infused a much-needed jolt of excitement into the world’s Instagram feeds when she announced that she and Sebastian Bear-McClard had secretly tied the knot in a courthouse wedding earlier that day. To refresh your memory: The entire wedding party wore chic men’s-wear-inspired suits, there were multiple dogs in attendance, and the groom was largely unknown to most of Ratajkowski’s followers. But, as is typically the case when it comes to marriage, Ratajkowski had, in fact, known the actor and producer for several years before they decided to legally promise to stay together forever—even if, as she shared this week in an interview on Busy Philipps’s new talk show, Busy Tonight, their relationship for much of that time was completely platonic.
“We knew each other for a long time before, and he likes to joke, like, ‘Yeah, everyone thinks we got married quickly, but you vetted me for two years, so…’” Ratajkowski said. When Philipps suggested that the newlyweds had perhaps experienced a romantic-comedy-esque twist, whereupon, after being “just friends” for years, they’d suddenly seen each other out of context or in a new light (literally or figuratively) and immediately fallen in love, Ratajkowski pishposhed the idea. “Women always know, come on—what? I’m like, who, all the sudden, like, changes the way they look at someone?” she said. “No, I was always like, Okay, probably shouldn’t hang out with that guy alone.” That strategy, of course, was foiled at some point: “And then, next thing, I’m at the courthouse getting married,” Ratajkowski quipped.
As for that courthouse wedding, Ratajkowski explained that she doesn’t have anything against a more traditional wedding bash. “Weddings are amazing. I wanna party, I wanna celebrate love and relationships,” she said. “But this was just for us, and it was very nice.”
Shortly after their surprise nuptials, Ratajkowski revealed that Bear-McClard’s proposal had been just as unconventional. “He proposed to me at Minetta Tavern [in New York City], and he didn’t have a ring, so I was like, “Mmm, nah,’” Ratajkowski told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in April. “And then he took the paper clip that the bill was paid with and made me a ring, which I actually thought was really romantic.” Not romantic enough, however, to convince her to wear a paper clip on her left hand for the rest of her life: In July, the I Feel Pretty star shared photos on Instagram of her actual engagement ring, a thin gold band loaded down with not one but two massive diamonds, which was probably only slightly more expensive than that restaurant-grade paper clip.
Related: Emily Ratajkowski Shares “Gross” PDA Photo With Husband, Sebastian Bear-McClard
