Jonathan Bennett and Jaymes Vaughan are officially married!
The Mean Girls actor — who got engaged to the TV host in Nov. 2020 — and his groom celebrated their love in front of their closest friends and family in an inclusive, destination wedding on Saturday at the Unico Riviera Maya Hotel in Mexico.
“When you’re part of the LGBTQ+ fam, not everything in the wedding space is for you yet,” Vaughan tells PEOPLE. “The whole purpose of our wedding is to come together and join the two of us together, join our families together and start a new family.”
“And all that, as we were going through this process, we realized that our wedding is also more than just about us,” Bennett adds. “It’s about the entire community.”
Todd Danforth
Their friends were heavily involved in the big day, including one of Bennett’s closest pals, YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, who officiated their nuptials. The wedding party stuck to the color theme in black tuxes from Express and white tuxes by Robert Stanley Bespoke.
“It’s gender-neutral but everyone looks represented and feels sexy in their own way,” Bennett shares. “So it’s like a new tradition for the community. You don’t have to do dresses and tuxes. Anyone who wants to wear a tux, wear a tux, go for it.”
The newlyweds skipped a typical wedding walk down the aisle. Instead, they chose to meet one another at the altar after walking in from the beach to a song that Vaughan wrote for Bennett at the couple’s engagement.
Each man wrote his own vows and placed a diamond-encrusted Kay Jewelers ring on the others’ hand.
Todd Danforth
“[It was a] new tradition we created,” Bennett adds, while mentioning the rings are now actually for sale in the retailers’ stores. “That’s what we’re all about.”
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For the floral arrangements, the couple chose white roses in honor of Bennett’s late mother. Guests also honored her memory by wearing only shades of white so Bennett could feel her presence on his big day — continuing the wedding party’s attire theme.
“White flowers were her favorite,” Vaughan explains.
Todd Danforth
“I got to marry my best friend! I knew we’d be emotional but I don’t think either of us realized just how overwhelming that moment would be until we were in it,” Vaughan tells PEOPLE. “Seeing him crying only made me cry harder, and then our guests cry harder, and then we’d all start laughing, and then all back into crying.”
After the ceremony, guests like The Wonder Years’ Danica McKellar and Bennett’s TV mom Sharon Lawrence enjoyed a cocktail hour where RuPaul Drag Race‘s Jackie Cox began the evening as the emcee.
Guests were treated to a Mexican feast including dishes like steak and mahi-mahi, all under the stars and twinkling lights — as well as a firework display set to the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman.
It was important for the couple to have all of their nearest and dearest seated at one round table, so nobody felt left out of the “tropical romantic” evening.
As they enter the world as a married couple, they hope to use their wedding night to help others learn to make their own unique traditions.
“It was honestly a dream wedding! We kept having to stop and remind ourselves that we weren’t on a movie set, but this was actually our real life. If you had told me this was one of my Hallmark movie sets, I would have believed it. It was that perfect,” says Bennett.
