High school sweethearts Emily and Braxton Bonds got the opportunity of a lifetime, to choose either a dream home or a dream wedding on Netflix’s newest hit, Marriage or Mortgage. Find out what they chose and what went into their decision!
When you think about the American dream, you might envision getting married one day and starting your own family in your own house. But what if you could only pick one? Netflix’s latest reality series Marriage or Mortgage gives couples like Emily and Braxton Bonds the choice to either invest their savings into their dream wedding or dream home.
“They had seen our engagement video on Facebook, and I looked and saw that I had a message when I got on Facebook,” Braxton said of how he and fiancé Emily ended up on the show. “I messaged them back and I was like, ‘That sounds cool,’ and then next thing I know we were setting up a Zoom meeting to meet with casting.”
Emily and Braxton first met in high school when Braxton was a star basketball player and Emily was a cheerleader. While Braxton was “eternally stuck in the friend zone” at first, Emily eventually realized he was the one.
In the fall of 2019, after a year-long engagement, Emily and Braxton got to meet with Nashville-based real estate agent Nichole Holmes and wedding planner Sarah Miller who wooed them with potential homes and wedding plans they could attain with their budget.
“Literally everything we did with so much fun,” Emily said of the filming process.
Though moving out of their parent’s homes and being closer to each other was definitely a priority, Emily and Braxton ultimately chose the wedding.
Planning a wedding
“We were completely ready to take the next step and get married,” Emily said. “We just really thought for us, it was most important for us to go ahead and get married and start our lives together as a married couple, and then in the future be able to get a house. But at that time we absolutely wanted to get married first and I don’t have any regrets doing that.”
Braxton and Emily both said their wedding was the best day ever and despite Covid, were able to celebrate with all their loved ones. Their favorite part?
“Dancing!” Braxton said.
“Yeah, having all of our friends and family at the reception made it so much fun,” Emily added. “We didn’t want to leave at the end of the night. We were like, wait, can we keep going?”
The ceremony was equally as meaningful for the couple. Their relationship was founded largely on their shared faith, and Braxton’s high school basketball coach was the one who officiated their wedding.
“He was a big influence on me as a young man in my faith and my walk with Jesus,” he said. “He did a really good job of displaying that and making us realize, ‘Hey, this is what you guys are stepping into. All of these people are witnesses to that.’”
Where are they now?
Since the show, Emily, a personal trainer, was furloughed from her job due to Covid but came back to work right after the wedding.
“I’d never experienced that before, but it wasn’t that bad and thankfully no one in our family got sick and we didn’t have any deaths in our family from Covid, so that was definitely a blessing,” Emily said. “But it was definitely an adjustment just to be used to staying inside when you’re used to just being able to go wherever you want and kind of do whatever you want.”
Braxton, a basketball coach who had been studying for his realtor’s license while he was on the show, decided to pursue coaching full time.
“Covid hit so I had to keep rescheduling the test for months and months and months, and then my basketball training business took off,” he said. “I’m an ex-basketball player so that’s what I love to do anyway, so God kind of worked it out perfectly.”
As for their living situation, the couple currently lives in an apartment with their two dogs and are saving up for a house.
“We haven’t really been looking more for houses yet,” Emily said. “Hopefully in the near future we will be able to do that as we save more money, and when we do, we’ll definitely call Nicole.”
To find out where the rest of the couples from Marriage or Mortgage are now, keep following AfterBuzz TV for interviews with the cast. You can stream all ten episodes of Marriage or Mortgage on Netflix now.
