Briana Culberson took a trip down memory lane in celebration of her 14th wedding anniversary.
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The Real Housewives of Orange County daughter reflected on the milestone in an October 24 Instagram post, which offered a rare peek at her and Ryan Culberson’s Las Vegas elopement. Briana posted a photo of her and her husband standing outside a drive-thru chapel, just hours after they decided to get hitched.
Briana Culberson looks back at her 2011 elopement with Ryan Culberson
“Our $132 Las Vegas midnight drive thru window marriage is 14 years strong!!!” she captioned the Instagram. “Love you [Ryan]. Thanks for our 4 amazing children and all the adventures so far! And thanks for being my best best friend… This is 1 of only 2 pics we have from our wedding night.”
Briana — the only daughter of RHOC alum Vicki Gunvalson — went on to share more details about her wedding night, suggesting she had no idea she would end the day as Mrs. Culberson. Briana said she and Ryan were watching a Sunday football game at Dave & Buster’s when they decided to take a six-hour road trip to get married in Vegas. Although the journey included a dinner stop at Chipotle and a speeding ticket, the couple managed to get to the Vegas courthouse before midnight. They then rushed to a drive-thru chapel and made their marriage official.
“Drove right back to Orange County and Ryan was on base at Camp Pendleton at 5am Monday morning for work,” Briana recalled. “Me: 8 days out from total thyroidectomy [and] Ryan: exactly 1 week home from Afghanistan deployment.”
RELATED: Briana Culberson Is “Utterly Unstoppable,” Revealing Emotional Updates on Her Kids & Husband
How Vicki Gunvalson reacted to Briana Culberson’s drive-thru wedding
The Sin City wedding was addressed in RHOC Season 7, Episode 12, when Briana and Ryan informed Vicki about their last-minute elopement.
“We’ve just kind of realized that life is short and we just wanted to be spontaneous and we know what we want,” Briana told her mom at dinner. “A couple of days ago, Ryan and I drove out to Vegas, it was just the two of us, and we decided to go to the courthouse and get a marriage license, then we found a chapel with a drive-thru window and we got married.”
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Vicki was understandably shocked and began to question whether Briana made the right decision. The OC mom said she struggled to get excited about the marriage and was even “embarrassed” by how it all went down.
“I didn’t tell any of my family members or my friends because I didn’t even know how to begin to discuss it,” Vicki wrote in a 2012 BravoTV.com blog. “All of my dreams for my only daughter’s BIG DAY were taken away from me in an instant (and for that matter taken away from HER). More importantly, the family had not met him or his family. I knew very little about Ryan and now I had an instant son-in-law.”
Vicki, thankfully, had a change of heart and realized that Briana and Ryan had an authentic love.
Briana Culberson & Ryan Culberson have a formal ceremony
About seven months after the elopement, Briana and Ryan had a formal wedding with their friends and family. The outdoor ceremony was held on Santa Barbara hill overlooking the ocean. Vicki and her ex-husband Donn Gulvason walked Briana down the aisle.
“Briana was glowing and the most beautiful bride I had ever seen,” Vicki wrote about the event. “I went ‘all out’ for her… There wasn’t a dry eye at the reception.”
Briana and Ryan have since welcomed four children together: Troy, Owen, Hank, and Cora. Get the latest on their family’s Oklahoma farm life.
