After Canceling Their Big Plans Amid COVID-19, This Couple Had a Fairy-Tale Backyard Wedding

“We actually met on Bumble!” actress Briana Henry-Bowers says. “I thought he was cute and his bio said he went to Juilliard, but was a ‘florist.’ I appreciated the humor and decided to go on a date with him after some encouragement from my gfs.” Kristopher “Kris” Lee Henry-Bowers has composed music for Mrs. America, Dear White People, When They See Us, and Green Book. He had just moved back to L.A. to do more film scoring, and Briana was his first Bumble date. “I honestly fell pretty hard, very quickly,” he says. “I think one of the early moments that got me was when we were walking down the street after Briana had just finished teaching a SoulCycle class. Suddenly, she stopped, took her jacket off—with only workout gear underneath—and put her jacket on a homeless man sleeping on the street. We had only been dating for a couple of months at that point, but in that moment, I really felt like, ‘Whoa, who is this woman? You better do everything in your power to rise to her level.’ ”

After composing for Green Book, Kris was attending a variety of industry events, and he used that to set the stage for a proposal. “He told me that there was an event that he really wanted me to go to with him—he made a fake flyer and everything,” Briana remembers. “Truthfully, I was burnt out from all of the events and asked if he really needed me there, which he confessed he did.” Briana’s mom talked her into going and buying a new outfit for the event, and she found a beautiful white jumpsuit. “I got all dolled up and as we were about to head out the door, I decided I wanted to try and paint my nails—silly mistake. I dropped the nail polish, and it shattered all over the ground, leaving little specs on the bottom of my white jumpsuit. I started bawling, my mom was on her knees trying to get the nail polish out, all while Kris was anxious to get me out the door.” They finally pulled up to the location of the event—a house that didn’t look quite like your average venue. When Briana walked in, she saw rose petals and pictures of her with Kris throughout the space. “He walked me out onto the balcony—we were in Malibu so it was beautiful!—and he dropped down on one knee. I was so in shock I’m not even sure I heard most of his proposal. As I said yes all of our close friends popped out from behind a wall where they had just watched the whole thing. I nearly fell to the ground, overwhelmed with emotion. To have this man that I was so in love with ask me to be his wife and then have our best friends there felt like a dream. He nailed it.”

From there, Briana and Kris started planning. They set a wedding date of June 6, 2020, which meant that when COVID-19 spread, they had to change everything. “Ultimately, we were able to make June 6 happen, but we had to cancel the entire wedding we had been planning for over a year with our wedding planners,” Briana says. “When COVID-19 started to really become a concern, we went to our planners and discussed what our options were. Our only choices were to change our date to December or get married next year.” They had wanted to marry at the Santa Lucia Preserve in Carmel, where Briana would wear Vera Wang among the redwood trees. They had been engaged for over a year, and didn’t want to wait until December, or longer. “Once we started to go into lockdown, we decided to cancel everything and play it by ear,” Briana says. “We figured we would continue to keep an open mind, and maybe just go to a courthouse to get married and celebrate at a different time. We reminded ourselves about the fact that while we were canceling our wedding, people were losing loved ones around the world. It was humbling. If anything, moving through that experience made us feel even more like a team.”