Bachelor in Paradise couple Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt have spontaneously tied the knot in their first of two weddings, shocking Bachelor Nation.
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Joe and Serena, who got engaged on Bachelor in Paradise’s seventh season in Summer 2021, got married on October 27 at a courthouse in New York.
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“JUST MARRIED !!” the new spouses captioned a video of their first kiss as husband and wife late last week on Instagram.
“We are still having a wedding this September [in 2023] but who doesn’t want to get married twice!”
In the Instagram video, Serena, 25, and Joe, 36, were pronounced married by the state of New York, and Serena giggled with excitement and joy as she held Joe’s hands.
The video concluded with the couple kissing in front of an officiant, and Serena and Joe’s witness, Bachelor in Paradise alum Natasha Parker, could be heard cheering behind the camera.
In the comments section, Natasha apologized for “squealing” in the footage.
Serena and Joe dressed very casually for the occasion. Joe wore a navy blue sweater with black pants and white sneakers, and Serena wore a white long-sleeve shirt, black leather pants and boots.
Congratulatory comments poured in from Bachelor Nation, including messages from Mari Pepin-Solis, Rachael Kirkconnell, Bryan Abasolo, Nick Viall, Rachel Recchia, Jared Haibon, and Victoria Fuller.
Joe’s fellow The Bachelorette 14 alum Jason Tartick wrote, “This is the most grocery store Joe thing ever and I f – c k I n g loveee itttt so happy for you two.”
The Bachelorette 14 star Becca Kufrin commented, “I may have just peed my pants with excitement! Congrats you two, love you both so much and can’t wait to see what your future holds.”
Tia Booth, who co-hosts the “Click Bait with Bachelor Nation” podcast alongside Joe, commented, “A whole ass husband and wifey!!!!”
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And The Bachelor franchise’s host Jesse Palmer gushed, “Congrats you two!!!! (For the record I’m ALL about getting married 2x).”
Serena and Joe told Us Weekly after their quickie ceremony, “We have always known marriage was in our future, it just looked a little bit different than we expected.”
“We still plan on having a big wedding next fall that we are already planning,” the couple shared, “but with everything being so public in our relationship, having a private moment just the two of us felt so special and intimate.”
Serena and Joe chose Natasha as their witness because she had “seen our relationship from the very beginning,” according to the lovebirds.
“We can’t wait to celebrate with all of our family and friends next year at our wedding, because who doesn’t want to marry the love of their life twice?” the couple reiterated.
The courthouse wedding came only two days after Joe celebrated Serena’s 25th birthday on October 25.
Joe posted a video of Serena blowing out a candle on a piece of cake, and he wrote, “Happy birthday baby.”
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The Bachelor in Paradise 7 finale, which featured Joe’s marriage proposal to Serena, aired in October 2021.
Serena, who previously lived in Ontario, Canada, and Joe, a proud Chicago native, moved in together this past spring in New York City.
In September, Serena told Us Weekly that she and Joe hadn’t begun wedding planning yet.
“We have to be a little flexible in terms of venues and such and what’s available,” Serena told Us. “But we would love to get married next September. We definitely wanna get married next year.”
Serena revealed that she and Joe would be open to “maybe August or October” in 2023 as well.
“But [it’s happening] next year, and it’s gonna be somewhere in the U.S. — probably not Toronto or Chicago,” Serena said, confirming the couple won’t be having a destination wedding.
“We’d just like to make it kind of a destination for everyone, and we just want it to be a fun weekend. I have to start looking at wedding planners. That’s actually on my written to-do list for next week. So hopefully I’ll have a wedding planner soon.”
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Serena admitted at the time she was “very overwhelmed by the planning process” but felt ready to dive in.
“Joe will start off saying, ‘Whatever you want,’ but he is an opinionated guy. He has a vision for the wedding, for sure,” Serena shared in September.
“I think it’s actually gonna be very 50/50. I want it to feel like our wedding, not my wedding. And if anything, I would say he’s probably more opinionated than I am about this stuff… It’ll be a team effort.”
As far as her wedding gown goes, Serena said she doesn’t have a dream dress in mind.
“I think once we see the venue and where we pick to get married, I’ll be able to start envisioning a mood board for the dress and the hair and the makeup,” Serena explained.
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“But I don’t wanna, like, look or feel like anyone else on that day. You know, I love my neutral, glowy bronzed makeup and that’s probably what I’m gonna do on my wedding day even though that’s what I do every day because that’s what I love.”
She added, “For my wedding dress, I want it to be comfortable. If I have to wear it all night, I want to be comfortable in it.”
Serena expressed how she’s so confident in her relationship with Joe, especially since it was “really easy” living together for months.
“I feel like we kind of already lived together even though we didn’t because I did [have] things at his place in Chicago and we just spend a lot of our time there together, but it [wasn’t] fully living together,” Serena said.
“I mean the two closets definitely was an adjustment and New York apartments are a little smaller than what the Chicago apartment was, but we’ve made it work and we love living together. We’re lucky with how smooth it was.”
Looking back on how her relationship with Joe began, Serena said, “I think we did always know we were gonna get here.”
“I think the most crucial time is right after the show — at least for us. Going into it, we were like, ‘This is kind of the first test,'” she explained.
“We know we love each other; we see a future together. But right after the show, spending that time in the outside world, like, is there that compatibility? Could we live together and not wanna kill each other?”
Serena said since that transition went “so smoothly,” she and Joe had no hesitations or doubts about tying the knot.
Serena and her fiance celebrated their engagement party in July 2022 with family and friends.
“Our parents actually met at the engagement party… It was really more about the coming together of our two worlds,” Serena told the magazine. “It was a good reason to bring everyone together… I have a great relationship with his family and him with my family.”
Back in June, Serena said she “definitely” wants to have kids with Joe, hopefully two children, adding, “I told him on our very first date in Paradise if he didn’t want kids, that would be a dealbreaker for me!”
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“I grew up working with kids teaching dance and swim lessons, so I have always wanted my own,” she said.
Serena also mentioned at the time how the couple would be interested in getting a dog but they’d have to stop traveling so much for that to become a possibility.
Serena gushed in early November 2021 that she and Joe make “a fantastic team together,” according to Hollywood Life.
“He’s a fantastic communicator,” Serena said. “We just understood each other and felt very comfortable and safe and open with each other in the relationship.”
Serena and Joe believe they established a strong relationship foundation while filming Bachelor in Paradise.
Serena, for instance, never let the fact Joe’s ex-girlfriend of nearly two years, Kendall Long, was on the beach get in the way of her connection with the former grocery store owner.
Serena kept her eye on the prize, avoided jealousy, and trusted Joe as Kendall sought closure.
Looking back on Joe’s marriage proposal, Serena previously told Becca Kufrin on her “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast how she was in “complete shock” by Joe’s decision to propose marriage on the show.
“The logical thing to do would be like, ‘This is crazy. This is so fast, let’s just do the step-by-step thing and get engaged down the line,'” Serena explained at the time.
“I was so emotional when he got down on one knee and I was so excited to say ‘yes.’ I was obviously in complete shock but I knew he was the one.”
Serena called the moment “beautiful” and insisted she had no regrets about the quick engagement.
Prior to appearing on Bachelor in Paradise 7, Joe got eliminated very early from Becca’s season of The Bachelorette and met Kendall on Season 5 of Paradise.
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Despite being happy and in love, Joe and Kendall broke up because they couldn’t agree on whether to live in Chicago or Kendall’s home city of Los Angeles long-term.
Joe gave Los Angeles a chance during and after his stint on Dancing with the Stars in 2018 and wanted to move back to Chicago to be with his friends and family, but Kendall apparently wouldn’t even consider relocating and trying out a life in Chicago.
And Serena dumped Matt James on his The Bachelor season that aired in early 2021 after her hometown date.
In addition to Serena and Joe, two other couples got engaged on Bachelor in Paradise’s seventh season: Mari and Kenny Braasch as well as Riley Christian and Maurissa Gunn.
Riley and Maurissa, however, have since split.
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.