A young couple claim they got hitched after only two weeks of dating – because they thought it was the best way to commit to each other.
Clara Bell, 18, and Trey Bell, 20, tied the knot in a dreamy Florida beach wedding with a $200 service – just three hours after deciding to get hitched.
Teenage bride Clara, from Louisville, Kentucky, announced her impromptu nuptials on TikTok on October 16, when she shared a video captioned ‘getting married in three hours, stay tuned’.
Follow-up videos featuring photos of the newlyweds embracing on the beach have received more than five million views and thousands of comments.
It’s possible to obtain a marriage license and wed the same day in Florida, but couples must have completed a pre-marriage course beforehand, or else there is a three-day wait.
Clara and Trey have not explained when or if they took the course.
Clara and Trey, who make money through TikTok, had met and briefly dated in 2018 before going their separate ways.
After reconnecting on Snapchat in September and spending two weeks together as a couple, the pair took a trip to Panama City in Florida and ended up eloping.
Clara said: ‘We were dating for two weeks before the wedding. We spent every day together during that time and got married on the same day that Trey proposed the idea – we eloped.
‘Our families didn’t attend because it was so last minute – it was literally just the two of us. There was a minister who we had come to the beach with a photographer, but that was it.
‘When Trey first proposed the idea of getting married, I was pretty on board. I was like ‘That’s crazy’, but we did it.
‘Our families were certainly surprised. I hadn’t told my parents about Trey. So not only did I have to say I was married, I had to introduce them to my husband because they didn’t know him.
‘It was surprising in a shocking way, like ‘What?! You did what?!’
‘But they’re happy now. Trey met my parents; I’ve met his parents. They’re super happy for us now, but at the time, they were just shocked and confused. I wouldn’t say they were shocked in a bad way though.
Trey said: ‘When I mentioned the idea of getting married, we just looked up whether we could get married that day.
‘There was a company in Panama City Beach who had that option, so they’re the company we went with. They gave us the minister and all the paperwork and stuff.
‘I didn’t think we’d get married after two weeks, but I did think we’d get married at some point.’
The couple had originally met three years earlier when they met via Snapchat and briefly dated before going their separate ways.
Claire said: ‘We’d dated for a little while when I was 15 and Trey was 17. He reached out to me on Snapchat, asking me to go kayaking. I went kayaking and then we dated for that summer.
‘When we went to different schools, we separated. He went off to college in Kentucky, and I went to a prep school in Georgia to finish high school there.
‘We didn’t speak for all that time because we were three states apart, but then we reconnected this year over Snapchat and just got married.
‘The feelings we had came back when we started talking again, after three years apart. I’m sure we still had feelings in those years, but there wasn’t a lot of communication going on. When we reconnected, it felt natural and right.’
