Bondi Sands founder Shaun Wilson weds Tess Shanahan in LA wedding; insiders say $1 million celebration

Shaun Wilson, the co-founder of Bondi Sands, tied the knot with Tess Shanahan in Los Angeles over the weekend, staging a ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel that insiders described as a three-day extravaganza on Sunset Boulevard. The wedding comes after Wilson and Bondi Sands’ sale to the Kao Group for about $450 million in August 2023, a culmination of a year that transformed the Australian self-tanning brand into a global player.

The couple announced their engagement in July 2023, about a month before Bondi Sands and its related companies were sold to Kao. Tess Shanahan, a Melbourne-based model, wellness entrepreneur and podcast host, wore a strapless silk gown with a high slit and veil for the ceremony. A Daily Mail photographer captured the couple after they exchanged vows outside the Beverly Hills Hotel, with the pair posing for a series of cinematic shots as they celebrated their union.

Guests arrived in Los Angeles on Friday for what was described as a three-day celebration, with Aussie accents reported to be everywhere at the landmark Sunset Boulevard hotel. The couple’s photographers captured moments of Shaun lifting Tess’s leg as she leaned back to kiss him, a playful sequence that underscored the couple’s upbeat mood on their big day. The groom wore a classic black suit, while Tess completed the look with elegant accessories to accompany her gown.

Prior to the wedding, Shaun hosted a bucks party in Sydney’s eastern suburbs about a month earlier. After flying in from Melbourne by private jet, his entourage gathered at Mimi’s in Coogee for a luncheon before retiring to a private mansion in Vaucluse for an exclusive party. The event provided a glimpse into the couple’s social circle and the kind of high-profile celebrations that surrounded the nuptials.

The wedding follows a milestone year for Bondi Sands, founded in 2012 by Wilson and Blair James to offer Australians a sun-kissed glow without the harmful effects of UV exposure. By 2021, Bondi Sands held roughly 60 percent of Australia’s self-tanning market and had become a global best-seller, with products stocked in more than 30,000 stores worldwide and major U.S. retailers such as Walgreens, Ulta Beauty, Target, CVS and Rite Aid.

Tess Shanahan, aged 28, has developed a parallel career as a model and entrepreneur. In addition to modeling work for brands including Alex Perry and David Jones, she founded Verve Superfoods, a line of natural powdered blends designed to boost smoothies. As a couple, they welcomed their daughter Romee Rae Wilson in September 2024, cementing a family life that has been very much in the public eye since their engagement.

The weekend’s festivities reflect a growing trend among the entertainment and influencer-adjacent set toward destination weddings that pair luxury with a sense of personal branding. While details and prices of private events remain closely guarded, insiders have suggested that the couple’s wedding budget was substantial, aligning with the couple’s public profile and the scale of their social network. Beyond the nuptials, Wilson and Shanahan appear poised to navigate new chapters as business and family intersect, with Tess continuing her ventures in wellness and media and Shaun leveraging his entrepreneurial success for future projects.