Jillian Michaels is a happily married woman – again! For the third time, Jillian, 49, said “I do” to DeShanna Marie Minuto, this time in an elegant ceremony at the Aman Hotel on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Photos of the June 24 ceremony, published by PEOPLE, show Jillian wearing a breathtaking black dress. DeShanna, 38, wore a white Zuhair Murad gown adorned with asymmetrical handmade beadwork and looked absolutely stunning when walking down the aisle.
During the ceremony, Michaels became emotional when reading her vows (“I didn’t think I was going to cry!”) before surprising her new wife with a 7-carat emerald wedding ring. “She’s beautiful, she’s funny, and she’s so creative,” the fitness guru told People. “But all that shiny stuff, in the beginning, doesn’t last. So what makes you say to yourself, ‘I want to walk alongside this human for the rest of my life.’ And I take that really seriously. I’m 49. I’ve never married anyone. I just didn’t believe that there was a human I could do that with until DeShanna.”
Italy-native Minuto planned the wedding with help from Design Anarchy Studio. “DeShanna comes from a very big Italian family, and it’s her favorite country in the world,” Michaels told PEOPLE. She also said that she met her future wife on the dating app Raya and that she is “my best friend and my rock.”
“She has this insatiable desire to learn, and that’s really been such an amazing thing for me and for us as a couple just to grow together,” adds Michaels. “It’s a dream come true. It’s us two against the world. No matter what, we have each other, we have each other’s backs.”
DeShanna is a fashion designer who has worked at several creative agencies. The NYU grad eventually founded the label Letterino 85, which sells reconstructed vintage jackets. She, like Jillian, is into fitness, as she competed as a D1 athlete during her college career.
This extravagant wedding is the third time that Michaels and Minuto have exchanged vows. The two have been dating since 2018, and in 2021, Jillian proposed. In July of the following year, they wed at a Miami courthouse. The small ceremony included friends, family, and Jillian’s two children, son Phoenix and daughter Lukensia. Later that year, Jillian and DeShanna held a second ceremony in Namibia.
“When we first met, I was like, ‘I don’t have the bandwidth for more kids,'” Jillian said on the HollywoodLife podcast in 2022. “And she had said, at the time, I don’t think that’s a deal breaker for me if I’m involved with your kids, but I will need to be married one day.’ And I thought, ‘Well, nothing’s a sure thing, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.'”