Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau's wedding was absolute, glorious chaos (2024)

Outside the Graffiti Mansion in Las Vegas, which had been custom painted with tags like #JanaForever in honor of the couple's special day, influencers dressed to the nines and teenagers in plain jeans and t-shirts crowded outside the heavy metal gates in hopes of either getting in, or getting a photo. Inside, Tana Mongeau, Jake Paul, and a reported 300 guests were celebrating love, clout, and a whole lot of spon-con.

Whether the two have actually been dating, let alone committed enough to plan a life together, has been debated by their fans and their close family members. No matter the veracity of their relationship, though, the union of Tana Mongeau and Jake Paul is the union of two empires.

Which is probably why their officiant Arman Izadi — a self-identified Vegas party "mood director" and convicted pimp — kicked off the ceremony with a tongue-in-cheek comment about their influence.

"We are gathered here today to join these social media juggernauts in holy cloutrimony," Izadi announced to the dearly beloved after a note to "turn off phones" and "turn post notifications on for everyone here."

Are you ready for a recap of this chaotic night? Buckle up.

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The party officially started with a pre-ceremony co*cktail party at the Graffiti Mansion, Izadi's sprawling 6,000 square foot property just off the Las Vegas strip. It was repainted in honor of the Sunday nuptials, and sprayed with both Tana and Jake's various social media handles.

Inside, the venue itself emulated the made-for-Instagram pop-up "museums" that have taken over feeds across the world in the last few years. The mansion's backyard, where most of the co*cktail party took place, included a red carpet, numerous photo backdrops emblazoned with #JANA, and a podcast setup where Jake's older brother Logan Paul was recording a live episode of Impaulsive until the ceremony began. Attendees' outfits ranged from casual streetwear to complete tuxedos. The summer heat was brutal; earlier that day, the temperature clocked in at a dry 110 degrees. As the sun set over the desert, a server wove through the party handing out folding fans from a bowl like one would serve hors d'oeuvres — at an outdoor wedding at the height of summer in Las Vegas, the fan was one of the only ways to combat the heat for guests dressed in full suits.

One of the unfortunate guests powering through the sweltering co*cktail hour was groomsman and Team 10 member Justin Roberts. The 16-year-old was tasked with holding the couples' rings, and despite going viral for rapping about having six figures at only four years old, he was pretty stressed.

"Very," he nodded when asked if the relationship was real. "I have a $300,000 ring on me. Oh my gosh, I got Jake's ring here too. This is all my my responsibility, I'm kinda scared."

He opened the box to reveal a massive (presumably diamond) ring, which glinted under the setting sun's pink clouds and the party's ring lights, and then displayed Jake's simpler band. The fact that the original ring Jake presented Tana with during her 21st birthday proposal cost just $125 only fueled the naysayers. A very sweaty Justin confirmed the couple's love was absolutely genuine, though — at least genuine enough for him to refuse to hold anything else since he was handed the box of rings before the co*cktail hour started.

"I didn't even take my jacket off, it's 100 degrees outside!" he noted. "Man, this is crazy, I'm excited ..."

He was interrupted by another influencer, who asked Justin if he could snap a photo. Justin seemed to panic for a second at the idea of putting down $300,000 to hold this guy's phone, but luckily someone else offered to do it instead.

"They're pretty close, and I think it's gonna work out pretty well," he continued, and nodded when asked if he looked up to the couple. "Yeah. Jake's been my best friend for a while, and I've known Tana for a couple months now."

The Pauls' mother, Pam Stepnick, wasn't so sure of her son's relationship. Before the ceremony started, she hovered around Logan's podcast set up.

"I'm taking it all in, it's beautiful," she said, fanning at herself. "I was a little shocked, I have to say. I was like, is this real, is it not? And then, all of a sudden it's really happening."

Both Jake and Tana have had very messy public relationships, and consequently very messy public breakups. Two of Jake's past relationships were investigated in Shane Dawson's docu-series, and he announced the end of his most recent one with a parody of Liza Koshy and David Dobrik's "we broke up" and a cathartic song titled "Im single." Tana's most recent break up resulted in a feud between her now-ex boyfriend Brad Sousa and now-husband(?) Jake, and while she kept their Instagram photos together public, she went back and edited the captions to remind her followers of Sousa's alleged cheating.

In addition to all that drama, Jake has been "married" before — on camera, at least, if not on paper. In 2017, he vlogged himself tying the knot with Erika Costell, a Team 10 member whose relationship with Jake started out fake for the views and supposedly ended up being real by the time the docu-series started filming.

"He faked one wedding in the past, it was a very different fake," his mother Pam cleared when I asked about his previous nuptials. Just because it's different this time around doesn't mean she's entirely convinced. "This one, I don't know. We're gonna find out, though."

Other YouTubers thought it was different this time around, too. Madison and Kyler Fisher, who run the family vlog channel Kyler and Mad, were surprised at how not trashy the event was. When you hand out invites for "Holy Cloutrimony," guests have varying expectations.

"My first impression was 'Wow, they did it classy!'" Madison said. She was holding her daughter Halston, a baby who racked up 62,000 followers before she was even born. "I thought it was gonna be more funny things going on, like bright colors, craziness ... It surprised me actually."

That being said, she and her husband still aren't entirely sure whether it's real or not. Madison said she "heard" the couple "really wanted to get the license going, really be married," but she has her doubts.

"The last thing everyone heard was they're actually making it real," she continued as she patted her crying infant's back. "I think it's actually going to be real, to change things up, but for temporary. Like almost for the clout."

"For the clout," Kyler chimed in.

As of Monday, no marriage licenses were filed in Clark County, Nevada for Tana Marie Mongeau and Jake Joseph Paul. Arman Izadi also isn't registered as a marriage officiant in Nevada, which requires an application. Officiants who want to perform Las Vegas ceremonies for up to five years must live in Clark County, pass a background check, and attend an in-person training course. Officiants who only plan on officiating one ceremony have to take an online course and provide a "notarized character reference" for the couple they're marrying.

Whatever the status of the relationship, it's raking it in. The wedding was a masterclass in spon-con.

The couple's whirlwind two-month romance that started with a rebound hook up accidentally publicized thanks to a Snapchat selfie has also been questioned because of just how convenient the timing is. Tana and Jake are also starring in an MTV reality show called Tana Turns 21, and its first season will include an inside look at the wedding and its corresponding drama.

The wedding venue's paint job was sponsored by a CBD oil company, and a floral signboard next to a cart full of mini bottles of rosé prompted guests to take photos with their drinks and tag Chandon and Belvedere Vodka. In a video posted on Sunday titled "we're cancelling the wedding..." Jake shilled Team 10 merch and a pay-per-view link to livestream the wedding for a hefty $49.99. The livestream's description called it "FOMO pricing."

"YouTube was very different two years ago, much less 10," YouTuber JC Caylen said. He and his girlfriend Chelsey Amaro weren't at all surprised at the sheer amount of sponsorship this party pulled in. "This is where it's going though. They're smart, Jake and Tana are very smart. They know what they're doing."

There were only about 80 seats to watch the ceremony for the 300 to 400 or so guests milling about the mansion. Vying for a spot in the enclosed veranda, where the ceremony itself was supposed to take place, was like trying to get into a club: It became a game of "Who do you know?" as bouncers referenced lists, checked in with event planners, and waved away those who were in enough to get into the mansion, but not in enough to watch the actual ceremony.

Predictably, Tana was late to her own wedding. When the bridal party finally walked down the aisle, dozens of cameras went off. Between the guest vlogs, the livestream, MTV's team, and the couple's personal recordings for their own vlogs, one bouncer remarked, "This is more cameras than faces!" Other attendees, who did manage to snag a seat, grumbled about not being able to see or hear the ceremony over the pit of various film crews.

The wedding's chaos peaked when, just before Izadi proclaimed them husband and wife, an unknown man stumbled through the fortress of cameras and tossed champagne onto the couple. A brawl broke out, as Izadi chased down the intruder and led a fistfight down the aisle. Their first kiss was swallowed by a flurry of flash photography, screaming, and guests whipping out their phones to record what went down.

As the cameras followed the fight, Tana led the bridal party into chanting, "JANA don't need no press."

"People are mad? Because we're in love? Who f*cking cares," she said to a bridesmaid.

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"Was that planned?" I asked Jordan Worona, Tana's manager, after Izadi got back to the altar to declare the couple "officially" married. The wedding party was guided by security to a more secluded lawn just outside the veranda, and passed around a blunt while they were shuffled out of the mansion for the reception.

"No it was not," he responded, shaking his head.

Logan wasn't sure whether the brawl was planned, either. It makes for great drama, and drama means views. During the red carpet at the wedding reception, held in a Sugar Factory on the Vegas strip, he explained his thoughts on the whole relationship.

"It was crazy," he said, pantomiming what went down during the ceremony. "I'm always speculative of everything, ever. Did it look planned?"

When asked if he thought Jake and Tana would last, he didn't even hesitate to say no.

"Seems a bit hasty, seems a bit preemptive, one might say," Logan continued, and said he gives them "a month, a month and a half" before they break up. "Now that there's a wedding, and it looks kinda realistic, it felt pretty real to me tonight ... Sure it was a show, but I don't know. I don't know."

Whether the love between the two is real is obviously between them. But like Logan said, it does seem real, at times. In a previous interview with Mashable, Tana dismissed the doubtful.

"Obviously, because of how publicized it is at this point, there's always going to be people that don't understand it or say that it's not real, but what is real?" she asked during VidCon, where she and Jake later publicly announced the wedding date. "If we're happy and we have a great time with each other, and we make each other the best versions of ourselves, and we're taking it day by day? That's all I can really ask for, as a 21-year-old girl in this crazy space with millions of people commenting on everything I do."

On the day of the wedding, she posted a poetic audio-only video titled, "I love you, Jake Paul." In the open love letter to her fiancé, she thanked him for their relationship and elaborated on how their shared past trauma became a source of bonding.

"I could never speak again, and you'd be able to write out what's in my head. We could close our eyes and walk through this life completely blind and we'd still manage to take the same steps. It isn't just I love you. It's thank you ... Thank you for going through every single thing I've gone through, but ten times worse, so that you know exactly what to say to make it all OK."

Jake himself barely spoke during the red carpet, and neglected to take solo photos in front of the Sugar Factory's backdrop. While Tana posed for photos, he waited on the side and remarked, "Isn't she great?" During the reception, the two huddled together for private conversations and inside jokes.

In a previous vlog about faking a pregnancy to prank Jake, Tana claimed she never made prank videos because she's terrible at acting. The video also includes an intimate scene where Jake, in a moment of genuine panic, says he wants to "be responsible." If the scene is scripted, then Jake is a surprisingly good actor.

The reception was equally as chaotic, if not more, than the ceremony.

The night ended shortly after the couple cut the cake with a massive sword, and then Jake continued to hack away at the three tiers until there was nothing left but frosting and sugar ground into the floor. Then, he began dancing in it and invited others to do the same.

Tana said the "only thing" that Jake requested about the wedding was "a sword and a cake."

"So I let him have that full-blown moment. I literally said he got his sword, he got his cake, he needs to let it happen," she said in a quick interview with Mashable just before leaving the venue. "Now he needs to stab that sh*t. So I backed up and I vlogged it."

She emphasized vlog into two syllables like she was about to snap a piece of gum.

"I'm just so happy, and I'm surrounded by the people I love," Tana gushed as she looked for her manager. "I could never do a conventional wedding. So to have something super unconventional felt absolutely right."

Jake, though, stayed aloof through the night. As he regrouped with his mother once the Sugar Factory manager flicked on the lights and shut down the party, he told me that he had been up for "like three days" and was overwhelmed.

When I asked how he responded to people claiming the wedding wasn't real, Pam chimed in.

"Seems real," she said.

"Yeah, keep watching," Jake responded, and then added, "Keep tuning in."

The couple was spotted leaving the reception in separate cars.