The Bachelor alum Ben Higgins has revealed his plans to marry fiance Jessica Clarke in November 2021.
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During the Tuesday episode of Ben and Ashley Iaconetti's The Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast, Ben discussed what's on the horizon for him in terms of a wedding.
"Unfortunately we are [waiting until 2021 to tie the knot]," Ben said, later adding, "We've now planned it to be around November 2021."
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Ben explained the thought process he and Jess had "in all transparency."
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"This is where our thought process went," Ben began. "Ideally, it would have been this year we would have gotten married... November [2020] was the idea. COVID, you know, kind of stopped those plans."
Ben and Jess therefore started looking at potential dates in 2021. However, Ben initially had tour dates booked in early 2020 for The Bachelor Live Onstage featuring The Bachelorette alum Becca Kufrin.
"Because of the timing involved, we weren't going to be able to plan a wedding for the January through April dates that we thought the tour was going to be going," Ben explained.
"And it's important for me to do that. It's a good source of income for us. We both were pumped about the idea of it. So we were like, 'Okay, we'll do it mid-year.'"
But, Ben continued, "Her brother plays professional baseball, as I mentioned before, and he will enter the season [in the spring]."
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Ben insisted he and Jess "joyfully" worked around Jess' brother's schedule and they don't want to make it seem like it was a problem or annoyance for them.
"She wants him there and it's important to me to have him there," Ben noted, adding that Jess only has two brothers.
"So we're like, 'That's fine,' and now we're looking unfortunately now [at November 2021]. We don't have an exact date yet. We're finalizing the location of it, but I do believe it will be in November of 2021 that we will be getting married."
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Ben and Jess aren't exactly thrilled about waiting that long but they're apparently trying to stay positive and optimistic.
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"Yes, that feels like a long time. Yes, that feels hard and it's not ideal. But what Jess and I have been able to do is, like, mentally wrap our brains around the idea of how much fun it is going to be to be engaged for a year-and-a-half," Ben explained.
"And we're talking to each other in that way. Like, 'This is a fun time. We should enjoy this. We can celebrate this.' Hopefully by then, you know, COVID is -- cross our fingers --it's far enough gone that our family can be there and celebrate with the freedom of knowing that, you know, there's a solution to the COVID virus and we can look at it in that manner."
Ben said he and Jess are simply "excited" for their big day but he misses her "often" because they're currently dating long distance since they're waiting until marriage to live together.
Jess has gone back to esthetics school to educate others on skincare and Ben is in Denver, CO.
"I'm sure there's going to be a time when it hits us, but we are going to be seeing each other often," Ben said.
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"But we will be apart until that day, and I want to believe and trust that in five years, it will almost be a distant memory -- how much time we spent apart -- and we'll have a lifetime together... Things are great for us."
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Ben and Jessica first revealed on a June episode of The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons -- Ever! that they planned to get married next year and had chosen to wait out the coronavirus pandemic before tying the knot.
Ben and Jess videochatted with The Bachelor host Chris Harrison during the three-hour special and shared, "We decided that kind of our dream is we both wanted to have the people we love at our wedding. That's super important to us, so we're going to wait to get married until 2021."
Jess added, "So now we just get a year-and-a-half of wedding planning and spending more time together and finding a place [to live] in Denver. It's going to be fun!"
The couple's relationship began when Ben apparently saw Jess' photo from a hockey game she went to with her father and decided to direct messaged her on Instagram. After chatting on FaceTime, the pair met in person and Ben asked Jess to be his girlfriend.
Jess said her relationship with Ben progressed quickly and became serious fast.
Ben recently told Us Weekly that he'd like to start a family with Jess in less than three years and probably adopt at least one child.
After competing for Kaitlyn Bristowe's heart on The Bachelorette's eleventh season, Ben starred on The Bachelor and famously fell in love with both of his Final 2 bachelorettes, Lauren Bushnell and JoJo Fletcher.
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Ben ultimately dumped runner-up JoJo in favor of winner Lauren, who accepted Ben's marriage proposal during the Season 20 finale that aired in March 2016.
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After starring on a Bachelor spinoff called Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After? on Freeform, Ben and Lauren split in May 2017.
Following his breakup with Lauren, Ben announced he was in a new relationship in January 2019, but he waited several more weeks before revealing his girlfriend's identity and going Instagram official with Jess.
Ben revealed on his The Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast in May 2020 that he and Jess are "happily engaged" and "having a great time being engaged."
Meanwhile, Lauren married country singer Chris Lane in October 2019 and is currently living in Nashville with him.
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