The Golden Bachelorette Season 1 finale aired on November 13, 2024, and ended with Joan Vassos choosing Chock Chapple as her perfect match. The couple got engaged in Bora Bora during the finale of the reality dating series. If you think about it, Chapple has held a special place in Vassos’s heart since the very beginning because she gave him her first one-on-one date at the beginning of the show. Starting from the beginning, through the finale, up until the After the Final Rose special, and even now, the two of them are going strong despite their long distance.
However, their living situation reminds many fans of how The Golden Bachelor couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist’s romance ended in a nasty divorce. Turner was from Indiana while Nist lived in New Jersey. While the former couple had discussed relocating to South Carolina together, they were never able to actualize it, and had to part ways instead. Now, considering that Vassos lives in Maryland and has made it clear that she doesn’t want to move while Chapple lives in Kansas, it’s easy to imagine their relationship going down the same path. However, the newly engaged couple seems determined not to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.
‘The Golden Bachelorette’ Stars Have a Clear Plan
During many of their dates on the show, Vassos and Chapple talked in length about their living arrangements. Vassos had made it clear since the beginning that she would never want to move and leave her family, and Chapple always knew what to expect when he proposed to her. Before the proposal, Chapple even gave Vassos a heart-shaped keychain to symbolize his commitment to her and their plan of buying a home together in New York City. The idea of this shared home was meant for the couple to have a space of their own right from the get-go.
In an exclusive interview with Variety, the couple spilled the beans on their plan and shared that both of them wanted to spend time in New York. Chapple revealed that the two of them loved the idea of moving between their respective families in Kansas and Maryland, and then having a place to run away to whenever they needed quality time. Nist and Turner also did not want to be away from their families. But the problem is that they couldn’t figure out a balance. Vassos and Chapple, on the other hand, seem to have find a way around it. The newly engaged couple reportedly went to New York on November 15, 2024, and is still there for apartment hunting, which goes to show how committed they are to making this work.
Vassos Is in No Rush to Walk Down the Aisle
One of the major reasons why Nist and Turner broke up was how quickly they rushed into things. One week, Turner was telling Leslie Fhima that he loved her, and the next week, he was engaged to Nist! During her appearance on the Almost Famous Podcast in November 2024, Nist confessed that 4 weeks was not a lot of time to get to know someone, let alone marry them. So clearly, the long distance wasn’t the only reason why Turner and Nist couldn’t make things work.
This might also be why Vassos is in no rush to get married. During the beginning of The Golden Bachelorette Season 1, Vassos shared that her goal wasn’t to rush into marriage after finding her match on the show. It’s clear that part of it is because she doesn’t want to repeat Turner and Nist’s mistakes. Plus, throughout the show, Vassos’s approach to finding love has been very thoughtful and cautious. On top of that, she’s still healing from the death of her first husband, and wants to make sure that she settles down with the right person. Now that she’s engaged to Chapple, the couple is planning on spending the first year of their lives together traveling and going on adventures together, instead of jumping into marriage right away. The two of them have six children between them who are also yet to meet each other properly and that’s probably going to be around Thanksgiving.
Vassos Is Honest About Her Relationship With Chapple
The worst part about Turner and Nist’s relationship was how manufactured it was for the cameras. But it appears that The Golden Bachelor’s aftermath has compelled the current winning couple to approach theirs with cautiousness to some extent. During Vassos’s appearance on The Bachelor Happy Hour podcast, she confessed that she still has a lot to learn about her fiancé! The reality star shared that she was confident in their connection, which is why she said yes to his proposal. However, it was after they were engaged that the two of them really started getting to know each other. They want to keep learning new things about each other before they walk down the aisle and it’s good because this way, even if things don’t work out between them, the fallout won’t be as bad as it was with Nist and Turner. All things considered, their mature approach to this relationship, despite all the difficulties it might come with, makes one believe that Vassos and Chapple can make it work in the long run.
