Southern Hospitality stars Joe Bradley and Maddi Reese are giving PopCulture the inside scoop on their surprising love story as they open up about what really went down at their Las Vegas wedding teased in the Season 3 trailer.
The Bravo couple opened up to us ahead of the Season 3 premiere of Southern Hospitality on Thursday, Jan. 2, revealing that they’ve now been dating for “seven or eight” months. “It was crazy because we had to hide our relationship all year,” Bradley said. “And then we see the [Season 3] trailer and it goes from zero to 100, showing the whole world that we’re getting married in Vegas.”
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Bradley said the details surrounding their shotgun wedding are “very complex,” and that while he’d love to share “definitive” answers about whether he and Reese are legally married, “it’s such an epic moment in the season [that] to show you a ring or anything would be too big of a spoiler.” He added, “And I really want people to follow our love journey throughout the summer and see what happens.”
Bradley did share some of the wedding aftermath with us though. “I think the biggest thing that was on my mind on the flight home [from Vegas] after the wedding was having to talk to [Maddi’s] parents,” he confessed. “We’re very close with our family. So telling her dad afterward was definitely hilarious.”
The couple had to deal with the “huge sort of everything” that comes from a Vegas wedding and “making crazy decisions,” but Bradley said he and Reese have “no regrets” looking back.
Southern Hospitality fans were shocked to see footage of the couple’s Vegas wedding in the Season 3 trailer, as the two began dating while cameras were down after Season 2. Bradley had previously been open about having feelings for Reese since Season 1 of the Bravo show, but the DJ told us she began to see her best friend differently after splitting from on-again, off-again boyfriend Trevor Stokes.
“I was out of my relationship with my ex and I feel like I wanted to put myself out there and stuff,” Reese said. “And I feel like there’s no one I trusted more than Joe.” While it was a “risk” to try and take their relationship to the next level, Reese called it “worth it” to get to where they are now.
“It’s so refreshing being in a relationship where you have built trust and you know each other versus meeting someone, sleeping with them, getting into a relationship, and then you kind of get to know them — [that] kind of thing,” said Reese. “So I feel like having that trust that was already built was really, really, really important to me.”
Being able to work through “trust issues” that came from infidelity in her previous relationship has Reese feeling like she “can be myself and be independent and the hardworking person that I am” as opposed to someone who was always worried about her relationship. “I just feel like it’s night and day [compared] to my ex,” she added.
Southern Hospitality Season 3 premieres on Thursday, Jan. 2, at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
