It sounds like a movie, she said.

It’s got a love of love, he said.

Courtney Bonifacini and Gary Sewell know whereof they speak. The two Altadenans, who lost both their homes in the Eaton fire, are living a love story interrupted by disaster circling back to feel-good vibes, a made-for-the-cinema saga culminating in the first wedding held at a Pasadena Showcase House of Design.

Bonifacini, 56, and Sewell, 60, will get married at 5 p.m. today at the Bauer Estate and Gardens in Pasadena, in the Zen garden they designed for the 60th showcase. A 1,200-pound head of Buddha and tall sago plant that survived the fires are central elements of the redesign in the back of the more than 15,000-square-foot estate.

The 1928 Monterey Colonial home is set on 5 acres with 18 rooms, and was designed by Peter Hall, of Gamble House fame.

Sewell and Bonifacini, owners of GardZen Studio, are two of 30 designers that reimagined rooms and grounds on the estate. Some 30,000 people are expected to come through during its season, which ends Sunday.

“This is the biggest stress reliever, if you love what you do, it was a good distraction,” Bonifacini said of the creative task. “It was a project at first, and now it’s more like a healing process.”

The soon-to-be-weds met when Bonifacini’s son Giorgio, 18, took up dirt bike riding.

“So I knew Gary not for this,” she said, motioning to the Zen garden. “I knew him for dirt bikes. And when I learned this (garden design) side of him, I was very thoroughly impressed. I’m like, ‘Oh, you’re supertalented and gifted. You’re more than just a dirt bike rider.’”

For his part, Sewell, who moved to Altadena around 2002, meeting his future bride and her son sparked his passion for landscape design and dirt bikes. The two soon collaborated on GardZen and cheered Giorgio on at races.

Bonifacini and Sewell got engaged on Valentine’s Day 2024, and were busy on Showcase designs when the Eaton fire, along with more than 9,000 other structures, devoured his home on Maiden Lane and hers on Ewing Avenue, where she was born and raised.

Overnight, “everything I worked at and worked for is gone,” Sewell said, including his dirt bikes and memories of his family’s pool business. He admits to getting disoriented driving around town since so many of its landmarks are gone.

For Bonifacini, who lost memories and items from both hers and her son’s childhoods, not having “anything old” for her wedding is bittersweet. She bought her wedding dress from Jacqueline Beuzieron’s Shop at Showcase, a top and skirt with boots and a Western belt.

“I know it’s the first wedding at the Showcase, and I could have gone fancy, but I’m not a glam girl, I’m 56 and I know what I want to do,” she said. So the bride will match her groom, a self-professed cowboy at heart, who will doff his cowboy hat and boots with dressed-up duds.

Fittingly, Friday is Country Western Night at Showcase so there will be a band and line dancing and barbecue. Giorgio will walk his mother down the aisle.

“There’s this energy here that’s bigger than this disaster,” Sewell said.

It was his idea to get married at the place where they poured so much of their emotions post-fire. There is a moongate arch, a black mirror, Japanese red maples and a meander element Bonifacini designed with bamboo edging and rocks.

“This garden’s got a lot of love, it’s new hope,” Sewell said. “Do you feel the peacefulness? We’ve been here every day for the last couple of weeks.”

A clean slate is what Bonifacini is focusing on, especially after seeing her lot cleared by the Army Corps of Engineers last week. Both realize they’re not alone in feeling they’re living a bad dream every day, and that it is long-term.

“We realize we’re not in control of everything, and we have to learn that when the waves crash, we just have to roll with them,” Bonifacini said. “I feel like lately it’s just been like a spiritual awakening of a magnitude I’ve never imagined and it’s ongoing.”

For today, the couple are simply excited for their big, new beginning. He loves her unexpected funny remarks.

“I don’t hate it,” Sewell said. “When she found out I didn’t know what confetti eggs were, she got them for Easter and all excited to crack them on my heads. So that’s what I’m looking forward to, a lifetime of confetti eggs.”

Bonifacini said the man with a Santa Claus twinkle in his eyes and smile doesn’t just help her design superlative green spaces.

“He’s just supercaring and generous and I know he’ll take care of me and my son as his own,” she said. And even during the wildfire that took so much away, the new bride said she’s always felt one thing with Sewell by her side: “I feel safe with him. Special things are dropping in our laps.”