Ever since Bachelor nation couple Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon announced their surprise engagement, which finally aired on tonight’s Bachelor in Paradise, fans have wondered if this friendship-to-romance fairytale was the real deal. Yes, there’s a 2.4 karat Neil Lane ring involved, but did the guy who friend-zoned Ashley on multiple seasons of BiP really do a complete 180? And wasn’t she kind of serious with Kevin on Bachelor Winter Games earlier this year?
The short answer to both: Yes. The couple stopped by Glamour‘s west coast offices recently to talk about their relationship, which you can see in the video below, and their banter and PDA didn’t stop—even when the cameras weren’t rolling. Or, as Ashley put it during our interview, “Look at this man. He’s so perfect. How did my soulmate come in such a beautiful package?”
Now, the wedding countdown begins (“We’re thinking about next August, but definitely within the next 14 months,” Ashley says). Until then, we had plenty of pressing questions to ask. Like, who won’t be at the wedding? And how did that Bachelor in Paradise engagement go down? Read on for more.
Glamour: Who are you inviting?
Ashley Iaconetti: Well, all our friends. A lot of [Bachelor] production.
Jared Haibon: When it comes to the guest list, I can guarantee you there’ll be times we feel really awkward saying, “Yeah, you’re just not invited.”
Ashley: There are a lot of people who are like, “I better be invited to the wedding,” and I’ll be like, “Hmmm. Not.”
Jared: A lot of people have already been like, “We better be invited to the wedding!” And it’s like, “I know you’re not joking.”
Glamour: Who are these people?
Jared: People from Bachelor family who we’re kind of friends with, but we’re certainly not close enough to invite to the wedding. But seeing how it’s a very public wedding, I’m sure they’re like, “Of course I’m going to get invited!” I mean, I haven’t even started thinking of a guest list, but I’m already fearful.
Glamour: Do you feel pressure to invite the Bachelor or Bachelorette whose season you were on originally?
Jared: No.
Ashley: Oh, hell naw! Hells to the naw!
Jared: Well, I would want Kaitlin (Bristowe) and Shawn (Booth) there.
Ashley: I think Kaitlin and Shawn would make the invite because I would naturally invite Kaitlin; she was a big part of my experience on this franchise. That is funny, that he would have a girl he’s made out with at the wedding.
Glamour: But not Caila Quinn [who Jared dated the last time he was on Paradise]?
Ashley: Oh, hell to the naw! [Laughs]
Jared: We’re just not friends with Caila. I wish Caila all the best.
Glamour: Well said. Ashley, you’ve gone through so much heartbreak on the show. If you could go back and tell yourself one thing, what would you say?
Ashley: Hold on. Just keep holding out hope! You’re really good holding on hope, just keep doing it. [Laughs]
Glamour: For anyone who has ever been told it’s never going to happen with the person they are interested in, what kind of message does your relationship send? Or is this an exception to the rule?
Ashley: We say we’re an exception to the rule. When I read the hater boards and stuff, a lot of people are like, “They shouldn’t be thinking they’re role models for a relationship.” We don’t! In He’s Just Not That Into You, I’m the Ginnifer Goodwin character. I am the exception to the rule. Most people who are so in love with somebody and they just don’t feel the same way back for like, two plus years, it’s probably not going to happen. You should probably move on. In a way, I moved on. For a solid year before Jared actually admitted his feelings, I was like, I guess it’ll never happen.
Glamour: And you truly believed that?
Ashley: I honestly thought that our marriage pact was the only way Jared and I would be getting married. If we were both not married by 35. I was like, I bet you there’s a solid chance we’ll both be single by 35 if we’re not together and we’ll probably end up together and live a happy life. I didn’t think he was going to come out with those [feelings]. We get the greatest comments about hope and how we give people hope and they believe in love again. It’s the nicest thing we could ever hear from people. But when there is a friend-zone situation, I want to be like, here’s the best advice: Jared said if I were to have cut him off cold-turkey a couple years ago, he would have come back. All this would have happened way sooner. So, I think that’s the test for people who are stuck in the friend zone. Cut him [or her] off, and if they don’t come back…
Jared: Then it’s over.
Ashley: Then it’s not going to happen.
Jared: I completely agree.
Glamour: Jared, there was always a spark with Ashley though, right?
Jared: There was never nothing. We got along really well, but for me, there wasn’t that romantic, boom, fireworks. A lot of it had to do with timing. It was literally a month after I finished The Bachelorette, which I was very invested in, when Ashley crossed my path [on Paradise]. Even if it was really good, I was like, “No, no, no, no, it’s not going to work out.” I never really gave that an opportunity. What’s funny, though, is that I always knew I was going to have some sort of romantic-comedy spin on my love life. I just didn’t know it would end up like this.
Ashley: You sure got it!
Glamour: Let’s talk about going to Bachelor in Paradise this year. Why were you even going in the first place?
Ashley: I thought we were going to [give out] a date card. We had been down there during Paradise season three and Jade and Tanner came down there for a date card.
Glamour: Who arranged for this to even happen? Jared?
Ashley: He handled most of the arrangements for the first time. I’m usually our travel coordinator. But, I was like, in the case that this is what I hope it is, I’m just going to let him deal….
Glamour: What do you mean “in the case that this is what I hope it is?”
Ashley: I mean, I definitely hoped we were going there to get engaged. I think any girl in my shoes would definitely think that, too.
Jared: I agree. She was definitely dropping hints that she was going to say yes. She was saying, “Hey, if you ask me tomorrow to get engaged I’d say yes.” She’d even say that we’re not going to live together until we get engaged. So, she was definitely dropping a lot of hints. I was trying to keep it from her, but I knew as soon as I started talking to ABC [about] going to Paradise, and I was telling Ashley we were going to make a cameo…
Glamour: Did you suggest going to Paradise to get engaged?
Ashley: I may have done the initial planting.
Jared: No, you didn’t.
Ashley: I kind of told [one of the producers] back in the day, “We’ll see where this is going. If this is going as well as it is right now, maybe we’ll talk to you about things we can do in Paradise.” They would have talked to [Jared] regardless.
Jared: I give you a lot of credit for a lot of things, but I give you zero credit for that.
Ashley: [Laughs]
Glamour: So, you went down with the impression you were giving out a date card, which makes sense.
Ashley: Oh, yeah, it makes total sense. There were so many other couples down there. So many people made cameo appearances.
Jared: It wasn’t really out of the ordinary for us to go there.
Ashley: The more couples and people I knew were going down there, the less likely it seemed like we were going to get engaged. It actually made me feel like, Oh, everybody’s doing it.
Glamour: Let’s say it wasn’t an option to get engaged on Bachelor in Paradise. Would you have still proposed now, Jared?
Jared: Probably right around there. I remember talking to a lot of my friends and family about whether it was too soon to get engaged in Paradise. They were like, “Well, when do you see yourself proposing?” and I was like, “I don’t know, maybe six months from now.” So they said, “You’re going to wait six more months when this opportunity is presented to you? What are you, out of your mind?”
Ashley: Remember that conversation we had four days before we went to Paradise? I was like, “We’d have to be married by 31, so we can have a year married by the time we start trying to have kids.” And you were like, “What? 31? That’s like, next year!” He was like, “That’s so soon!”
Glamour: So you had started talking about having a family?
Jared: Of course. We started planning a family the day we became boyfriend and girlfriend. It’s not scary for us. I think that’s a big part of the relationship. It’s not scary for us to talk about the future because we want the future to be with both of us.
Glamour: How many kids do you want?
Jared and Ashley simultaneously: Two to three. [Laughs]
Glamour: What was the funniest reaction you heard from your friends in Bachelor Nation when they found out?
Ashley: I think they weren’t that surprised. They were like, “This is how we do things around here.”
Glamour: After your engagement is shown on Paradise, when will viewers see you two on TV again? Would you ever have your own show?
Jared: We’d be open to it.
Ashley: We’d definitely want to be producers on it because we wouldn’t want to be in one of those Jessica Simpson/Nick Lachey situations. So many couples who’ve had reality shows, it just breaks them. We’d need to be heavily involved.
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