The Bachelorette alum Michelle Young is rocking a new engagement ring on her left hand for the holidays.
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Michelle's boyfriend Jack Leius proposed marriage in their native Minnesota on October 24, and the former The Bachelorette star just opened up about her romantic engagement to People.
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"I tried to say yes several times but was in shock that no words really came out. There were a lot of happy tears and of course I said YES!" Michelle, 31, shared.
Jack, 27, popped the question with a custom 3.56-carat emerald-cut diamond at Centennial Lakes in Edina, MN.
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Jack lured Michelle to the special lakeside spot by making her think she was about to film a commercial, with the assistance of her management team.
"I was really excited when I found out I had the opportunity to shoot with one of my favorite brands for the second time," Michelle said.
But Jack had set up a fake shoot -- complete with a fake contract and script for Michelle to memorize -- to make sure his girlfriend would be totally surprised.
Michelle therefore arrived on "the set" with her hair, makeup and nails done.
A florist, posing as an employee of the brand, then led Michelle down a set of stairs to the lake "to check in with the photographer and videographer."
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However, instead of the commercial team there, Jack was waiting in the middle of a beautiful flower display.
"I completely froze when I saw Jack standing in the middle of this beautiful flower arch of white roses," Michelle recalled, sharing how surprised she was to see her man waiting for her.
"I was fooled so badly that for a moment I thought the joke was that Jack was one of the male models that I would be working with at the shoot."
Michelle admitted that while she's usually tough to fool, she never saw the engagement coming.
"I've always had a very strong intuition and could see surprises from miles away, even since I was little. I hadn't even slightly sensed this was happening today," Michelle said.
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Michelle revealed that Jack had shown "no signs" of being ready to pop the question. She said Jack never let on that he was even shopping for the bling.
"Little did I know that he had been designing the ring... for the two months prior," Michelle gushed.
Jack joked about how the surprise proposal "really tested" his ability to act.
"The biggest worry for me was that her intuition really does catch on to everything," he told the magazine. "There were so many moments we crossed that we thought she might catch on."
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Jack added, "Her management team and I are pretty proud about pulling off the big surprise, and we all have a lot of funny stories about how many details it took to make this entire day believable."
After Michelle said "yes," the pair celebrated at a party with their family and friends.
"They really did get me good to the point where even after the engagement party finished, I did check in with my management team to ask if I had to go back and do the video shoot," Michelle quipped.
Michelle said she was attracted to Jack's energy and kindness when they first met.
"You don't have to spend much time with him to see how much he cares about people in general," Michelle explained.
"When you're asked those cheesy types of questions about 'who comes to mind when you hear the words trustworthy, genuine, considerate, I've noticed he's the person who first comes to mind -- not just for me but for so many others who have crossed paths with him. I think that speaks volumes about his character."
Michelle gushed about how Jack calms her nervous system.
Now that the couple plans to spend the rest of their lives together, they'll be planning their dream wedding together, with a sizable guest list.
"We both have so many people close to us that we want on our special day, so definitely a big enough wedding to include them," Michelle noted.
Michelle and Jack settled into a new apartment together in June, and at that time, she called him her "soul mate."
In February, Michelle shared how it felt like "home" dating Jack.
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Michelle soft launched her new romance via Instagram Stories in early October 2023 when she had uploaded a photo with an unidentified man kissing her on the cheek at the Minnesota Vikings vs. Kansas City Chiefs game.
Later that month, Michelle posted a photo of "dinner vibez" with a mystery man.
Michelle and Jack went Instagram official in late October 2023 by writing, "Hit the Jackpot with you."
Michelle took Jack to Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist's The Golden Wedding as her date in early January, and the pair spoke about how they met through a mutual friend during the January 5 episode of "The Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast."
Michelle shared, "In my world, I thought I brought it up to this person, but [Jack] also did the same thing within, like, 48, hours... It was really weird."
"I didn't know until [Jack and I] had been dating for like two or three weeks," she added, "when we actually figured out we had asked about each other within 48 hours."
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And Jack gushed about how he and The Bachelor 25 alum "clicked" right away and began dating several days after they met for the first time.
Michelle explained how she and Jack may be an example of the "invisible string theory" in which it's believed a person has been in the same room with his or her life partner multiple times without knowing it.
"We went through breakups at the exact same time. We were both going through devastating breakups and we were both in the same stage of our breakups," Michelle shared at the time.
"We were not ready to meet someone. We'd think we were ready to meet someone, and then we'd take those few steps back. We go to all the same bars. Minnesota is not that big! And the lake he grew up [near], my family fishes on that lake 24/7... [And] I went to a football game that he was playing at, and I hadn't even known, back when I was a teacher."
Michelle fell for Jack after her broken engagement to The Bachelorette 18 winner Nayte Olukoya.
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Michelle and Nayte got engaged on The Bachelorette 18 finale and then announced they had called off their engagement and split in June 2022.
Nayte said on the "Bachelor Rush Hour With Dave Neal" podcast in December 2023 that he knew his relationship with Michelle wasn't going to last and he felt "a huge relief" when they called it quits.
Nayte also confessed that The Bachelorette was a "terrible" chapter in his life that "really f-cked" him up.
Nayte had initially planned to move to Minnesota to be with Michelle in March 2022, but he claimed on "The Viall Files" podcast in September 2022 that he decided to stay in Austin, TX, due to back-to-back arguments he and Michelle had in the first few days of January 2022.
The couple allegedly fought constantly, and so Michelle and Nayte's relationship lasted only six months after the finale aired.
On "The Viall Files" podcast, Nayte recalled there being a sudden and unexpected shift in his relationship with the former The Bachelorette star once they entered the real world, from being blissfully happy to living with tension.
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"We started consistently and gradually going downhill, where we were just, like, it wasn't sunshine and rainbows anymore," he claimed.
"I remember crying my heart out to [my mom and stepdad, saying], 'I'm so frustrated and I have no idea what's going on in this relationship.' How can you be so sure about something and then just have it fall apart?"
Nayte said he felt pressure to be perfect since Michelle was a famous face and they were the new hot couple in Bachelor Nation at the time. Nayte also said there were trust issues on his part, citing an incident when Michelle had allegedly suspiciously deleted a DM conversation with a famous male country singer.
The Bachelorette 18 winner also shared how he wanted "more of a partner and less of a coach" in his next relationship.
"I miss the Michelle I fell in love with, but I'm not sure I miss the Michelle I broke up with," Nayte told Nick Viall in 2022.
Nayte ultimately admitted that he dumped Michelle over the phone in June 2022 only days after they had celebrated her birthday. Nayte said she proceeded to block him on social media, which he called "a low blow."
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Nayte previously claimed he had never cheated on Michelle, but Michelle was admittedly blindsided by his choice to call it quits on their relationship.
Michelle admitted in February 2023 that Nayte had "stripped" her of her "dream" engagement.
"Honestly, for me, [it's] tainted. Because it was my dream ring," Michelle said of her pear-shaped diamond on Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti's podcast.
She added, "I wanted the relationship to work. I was willing to put in work for the relationship. And I had the person take off... Both people have to be capable of [working on the relationship]. And so, for me, it was yeah, I feel like that was literally kind of stripped away from me, so it pisses me off!"
Michelle noted last year how she's looking forward to her "real" second engagement.
On TikTok, Michelle opened up in early 2023 about how she had been hoping to find a goal-oriented man who plans romantic dates from start to finish and can go with the flow and remain positive in the face of unexpected challenges.
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As far as dealbreakers go, Michelle said "complacency" and being "emotionally unavailable" are two of them. She also said it's unattractive when men get stuck in a pyramid scheme, cannot read a room, give guilt trips, and fail to communicate effectively.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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