Burning Questions You Need to Know the Answers To

This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. We have been through every detail of both of our weddings, the dual weddings, the one in Napa and obviously the one that we held here in Austin, Texas. But Elsie, we have still gotten so many questions, and so I thought, let's jump back into this and let's take wait, let's get married again, Let's have one more. I think the third time is aim I have this ring on, I'm not taking it off.

Or let's plan another one wed again.

This one doing the look doing Austin in our hometown, which involved our home, and there were people in our home obviously filled it with family, the kids. It was a lot. The silence of this week is very welcome. I'll just say that.

I also, after we'd finished these podcast episodes, I'm going to literally have a break of silence and rest my voice. So I'm sorry I sound like this, but we're so excited to answer your questions and thank you all so much for caring about our wedding. Thank you for your wonderful comments and kind words and compliments.

It means the world.

So Kendall, our producer, is with us and I think Kendall's gonna give her voice to some of the questions from you all.

Okay, our first question is from Bruce. He's asking how did you guys decide who to invite from Bachelor Nation?

So our basic guideline there was who do we talk to fairly regularly? Who do we still feel close with? I mean, I covered the show for five six years. You yeah, so you've got a lot. I mean, gosh, when you do the numbers on thirty people per season, that's a.

Lot of people, over a thousand people.

So obviously Chris can't keep in touch with everybody, and I you know you and I. I also think we're maybe a little bit closer with some people because of age, Like I know, you're really close with Andrew Firestone and Bob Guiney because they you were the same age as them when they were on the show. So we were just going by who are we still pretty close with, Who do we talk to regularly? Who do we have

It just might be that we even talked to them in a long.

Time and to me. And this is how I kind of tried to separate it, because again I could have gone on and on and on, and I started going down this rabbit hole, and I think Lauren noticed it was really weighing on me.

We were afraid of missing someone.

Yeah, I didn't want to hurt anybody. You don't and I didn't want to leave anybody out. But at the same time, I wanted it to be very special. And so I think where I started to draw the line, and you helped me with this is who has a connection with both of us? Who has a connection with us, not me with us? Because again I can go back and yeah, there's Andrew Firestone, but Andrew and Ivanna are dear friends of ours. Very same thing with Bob Guiney.

We were really trying.

We'd heard actually from Wells Adams's brother and his wife, his brother Brett.

They had a rule at their.

Wedding that they didn't want to meet anyone for the first time at their wedding, And in Napa, of course we had our very closest friends. But Austin that was a risk and ultimately some people did you know, people get plus ones, We get it. So there were a few people we met for the first time, but you know, we had that spirit in mind if we wanted it

I also will admit that.

Because you had so many over a thousand people on the show over the years, when we were doing the guest list, we did pull up Wikipedia the Bachelor page and we went through all of the leads and then kind of glanced to do his their season, because I said, Babe, it's just what if you forget.

Someone, and inevitably Banks Wikipedia two people that I kind of forgot.

Too that Oh okay, let's ad minute.

No Brad Womack, we invited and because he's from Austin here and he lives here and you've got to know him. We've gone to dinner that was.

Going to come and ultimately couldn't make it. We forgot to mention him in the other podcast episode. He was invited to yes.

Because he's he's always been a very good friend of mine and so and former ESPN Sports Center host Sage Steele was here as well, a good friend of ours. So that's kind of whether they were part of the bats or outside like Courtney and justin a you know, baseball player, it's because they're friends of ours, and that's it's kind of moving to Austin. The reason we're here is it's something Lauren and I built together, and I wanted our wedding to be about everything together.

And I guess we could segue that into something we haven't talked about yet, which is how we chose Wells and Ben to make a toast for us. Yeah, we really we wanted the toast to be fun. We've been to weddings before where the toasts on and on, or there's too many people giving toasts, or I hate to say it, but not everybody's a performer I think sometimes people pick the people they're close to. But Chris and

And are beloved by all. Yes, you know it's neither one of them you're gonna choose and be like, oh, he chose him instead of me?

You know, No, we and I think everybody knows we're all so most importantly we're close with Wells and Ben Well, like Chris said, we wanted people know us both.

Yeah.

So Ben was the very first Bachelor and I ever did. I had started at ET and actually I've said this before, but I had never watched The Bachelor. I was a Housewives still am a Bravo Housewives fan, and I started doing The Bachelor just because no one was doing it. So I've known Ben for a long time. Wells was one of the first interviews I did so and they crushed it.

Their toasts were amazing.

All right, Kendall, what else you got.

Speaking of Ben Higgins, people are wondering what Ben and Jojo were like around each other.

Again from the same season this had. This was the dynamic. That's so funny when you do this. And I did not at all consider whose season was coming and who was on whose season. I think we forget a lot and who's dated because you can drive yourself crazy. But the dynamic with him is awesome. They are jovial, laugh make fun of each other about you know, and I think Ben even said about you know, Jojo not picking him, and I said, great choice, Jojo, good, you know, bullet dodged, and everybody got.

Alongst that joke.

Yeah, Ben and Wells has some good Bachelor jokes in their toes.

They did call you out.

I think Wells said Chris Harrison. I'm paarphrasing his joke, but he basically said, Chris Harrison is a matchmaker. But as I look around this room, he really only made one or two successful matches. So I think he joked that it turned out the Bachelor was a long count.

No Will said, he goes, you're a Matchmaker's like you are terrible at your job, and so he went around the room and he goes, isn't that right, Ben, isn't that right? Jojo is you know? He just kept going around the room and like everybody who's you know, relationships had failed. And then he got to Caitlin and Jason and said right, guys, and Caitlyn raised two fingers because obviously the show didn't go well, and then Jason Tartick

Wells accused you of using the show as a long con to find love for yourself.

He did, yeah, that he because I obviously found love through the show as well and meeting Lauren.

Now, I will say with Ben and Jojo because when I was again I'm interviewing them, like they did have a tough period there, Like they had some awkwardness when Jojo was with Jordan, and I don't think they were always you know, because like Ben was with Lauren for a while.

And when I think that was a real breakup. You know, there was a real emotional with Ben and Jojo. Two of the biggest hearts you're going to find hearts were broken and so they.

Needed he What made me really happy was seeing them at our house Friday night, Jojo is chatting with Ben and with his wife Jess, who's wonderful, and it looked like such a happy, chill, catch up, great conversation.

Hollie is asking, will you guys go on a honeymoon.

We are not going on a honeymoon.

I really felt like we were being decadent enough by having two weddings. We were going to be doing so much celebrating, and Napa kind of feels like a honeymoon destination anyway. But as Chris pointed out, well, we really couldn't go on honeymoon because we had to come back into our other wedding in Austin.

Also, yeah, I'm not gonna lie. And then Dad's weekend at TCU is coming, you know, So we have things, we have things coming up. When we're running into the holidays. We'll get there. I think we'll breathe it all in. Maybe I'll take Lauren to a quiet resort where where we're not allowed to talk.

But we did.

We did have one night at this beautiful place in Napa called the Poetry In and it's a place that's special to us because after we got engaged in Napa at brand. We were staying that night at the Poetry and it's this place. It's a house turned into a hotel that only has five rooms. They're all themed after poets. We love the Emily Dickinson Suite. It's kind of a special thing for us. The outdoor shower, I can't recommend it enough.

In the morning, he means that because you're looking over the vineyards. So wasn't you weren't being dirty there?

Right?

Oh whatever? Okay, Like in the morning, you know, because you're looking over stags leap in the valley and the hot air balloons are coming across, and it's just so quaint, so romantic. So we had a honeymoon night, special night that we left the Archer Hotel where we stayed for the wedding, which I can't recommend enough in downtown Napa. Thank you to the folks at the Archer who just treated us like royalty and took such good care. But then we moved over and stayed at the Poetry in for one night.

It was special to go back to the place where we were when we got.

Engaged, same room, same everything, and you know, we had a nice quiet breakfast next morning before we flew back home and it was just it was lovely.

A lot of people have this question, did either of you invite your ex?

Laura and I have both been married before and much talked about the answer. Simple answer to that is, I think is no.

No, no, I no exes, no ex boyfriends or girlfriends of any kind.

Yeah, no exes of any kind from either of us. Yes, that I know about, but no. And by the way, my my ex wife, lovely great mother, she did not invite me to her wedding either. I did not go to that.

It's always funny and I used to have to ask this question sometimes on ET. They'd want me to ask that, and I think, unfortunately that question immediately it makes it sound like there's something amiss, like, oh, you don't have a good real relationship. No, I think the best friendliest exes in the world. You're getting married again. Do you want your ex? And does your ex.

Want to be at your wedding?

You know?

Uh, your ex wife sent us a lovely congratulations.

I was going to give her give her props on that. She texted both of us and said, thinking about you on your wedding day. I hope y'all have a wonderful weekend and send us her love.

And I will say that I had for my former sister in law was at our party in Austin. I'm still very close with her. I love her dearly. So there is no bad blood of any kind. It's just I have. I don't think anybody needs to have exes of any kind of a wedding unless it's unless you want drama. And I will just unless it's Jason with Caitlin. He meant it your own, I know, I'm just kidding, totally kidding. Yeah, So that definitely no exes. And I, by the way, I recommend don't don't bring an X.

And by the way, even if the significant other doesn't even know who that person was or if you've ever been with him, it's just just for spectful in my mind.

And I wants to know if you considered getting married on television.

That was been that was brought up to us, and that was offered and nothing got crazy official and we never got down that road. For me anyway, It's something I wasn't against, you know, we never even really discussed it, but it's something I didn't really want. It wasn't I wasn't looking to monetize this. I didn't need to, and so.

Well, and I don't know that everybody gets on television mare and on television needs to monetize.

I just I agree.

It wasn't something I would have been against, but in the past, in the planning for NAPA and Austin, that was never part of the discussion for these And I loved everything about the way we did it.

Yeah, but some people that had had talked to Lauren and I early on about maybe if we did a show, we could kind of roll it into that show and we would launch it with a wedding, and we were like, yeah, no, we just want to get married. We just want to love each other.

Maddie is asking who was the drunkest from Bachelor Nation at your party in Austin, Bobby, Lauren and I. No.

People kept bringing us tequila shots. They bring the bride and groom tequila shots, which I support.

Well, I don't know about you, but I ended up at the bar with the guys. So I was over there with tartic Wells, Bob Guiney, who's never shy at the bar, and we cracked a bottle of Ceemprey tequila and shot and then more people kept walking up. That was the thing is people saw us over there, We're like, oh, I want in, I wan in, and next thing you knew, you're three or four shots deep.

No, I didn't know this.

I'm glad we're doing this podcast because I need to know what you were doing in our wedding. That was the thing about Austin. We had two hundred and twenty five people, and Chris and I had a divide and conquer to make sure we saw everybody in dance with everybody and said hi to everybody, and so I didn't really see you much of the night. Again, the reason I'm glad we had two weddings and had NAPA. How many shots did you take at the bar? I like

My boys were there and we were just having a good time. So I mean four or five probably by the end of the night. And I look, here's the good news. In all seriousness, no one got belligerent, no one made a fool of themselves, nobody was crazy silly in a bad way. We did run out of tequila we did run out of tequila, and I was it wasn't early. It was later in the night because the party went later than it was supposed to. And I said to Chris, like, oh no, we're out of tequila,

The bartender per took in the bar.

Yes, you know, Oh here's what's funny. And I'll just throw a well story out there. When we got to our event at our house here Friday night and Wells got here, Ben needed a drink and I look over and Wells is making Ben a drink and he's handing drinks out and I said, I went up to I said, Wells, you don't have to be the bartender tonight. Man just relax, enjoy the night.

Oh it's not a working night. Wells, we have air conditioning.

You're not in a but he and he enjoyed on Saturday for sure, as we all did.

Lauren, this question is for you. We actually had a soon to be bride reach out who is currently planning her wedding and her dad passed away ten years ago and she wants to know your advice on what she can do to honor her dad at her wedding.

Well, all my love to her. What a wonderful question.

I have seen a Well, I will say that I think you should say something about your parents or your loved one who's lost, if you want to. I actually, in the past had a wedding coordinator at my first wedding said I don't think you should say anything. I think it'll bring the mood down. And that was like, what, Like, you need to honor your that's the biggest thing. Honor your person, because you don't want to look back at that moment and wish you'd said or done something. Honor them,

I did cry during it.

We had a couple pictures of my dad framed out at my first wedding, which I loved. My little sister did that at hers too, and then at our wedding in Austin. Well, I guess and Napa, we honor my dad at both. Do you want to talk about that?

Well, I would just say, as the person on the other side of this, if your significant other is not into this and not willing to honor your father, that's a red flag to me. It was important to me. Well, family's everything to me, first of all, and so it was really important to me to honor your father. I think of him often. I think of him watching out on me and watching us, and I wanted to honor him, not not because you wanted it, because of us, and

It should come from a place of honoring, respecting, not something obligatory. And I agree, look for that red flag if it doesn't feel that way, but do whatever makes sense to you. In Austin, we danced our first day chants to my dad and nice favorite song, you know, because I never had that father daughter dance moment. I also,

Others asking how did you manage to keep the October wedding from being leaked to the media?

Great question, and actually had did I ever tell you this? I didn't want to make you nervous? No, I had a couple people I don't always look at like on Instagram, it's your messages from people you know, and then it's messages from people who like you don't follow, and I don't look at it a lot. But after I was a little nervous, like kind of scrolled through to be like, is anything popping up?

You know?

I was worried it was going to come out because we did want to keep it secret, because we didn't want anybody in Austin to feel like they were getting like, I don't know, some kind of second.

I think we wanted everybody in.

A yeah, like we wanted it to feel like a big deal and not like, oh, they already got married to us.

It was equal, yes, just different equal.

Just different.

So I was nervous and I did go and look and someone DMed me and said, Lauren, I heard you got married in Napa last weekend, but a random person. I don't know how or why and so, but they never that random I didn't respond, and that random person did not call TMZ or something. So thank you to that random person for just being cool again.

I think one of the bonuses is, yeah, we got married up in Napa, but we weren't in La.

If you go file for a marriage license at a courthouse in La or divorce or divorce, that tends to get it to TMZ.

Yeah. And I think it's called the circle of trust. Right, So we created the Napa a HELLI, you know group. These are the people we trust and love the most, and so oh I wanted to protect us.

Yeah.

I was never worried about our forty guests in Napa. You do start to get a little worried because, well, you're.

At a hotel, you're around Napa, and we had dinners.

We did a couple of things we did like in Napa. When we were coming in and out of our events, Chris and I would enter and exit the hotel separately. I mean I was wearing white, I would throw a coat on over my dress a big coat. But you know, I mean we are not really the type. We didn't have like the hotel sign NDAs and we didn't ask for stuff like that, so you know, someone who worked at the hotel could have called and given the news to any outlets. So I really appreciate that everybody respected

And I appreciated that.

And by the way, kudos to the Archer Hotel because we know some people there, but not all. And there, you know, we ran into a lot of people who could have easily said something. And at the end of the day, here's the other thing. Lauren and I both said, let's not stress about it. We're not going to be psychotic about it. We would love for it to remain a secret just for everybody's experience, including our own, but if it gets out, it gets out. And the fact

We were We were careful about not wearing our wedding rings after NAPA, but you were so bad about it, I had to keep it. We'd be going to dinner, I'd say, take your ring off, or you'd go post something on Instagram, like showing off your new golf clubs, and.

I'd be like, you have to reach rise.

I could wear my around the house only, and then I would take it off before we'd go to dinner or go to events, and I would often forget because I'm excited. I want to wear my ring. It's very cute that and so what I would do instead is I would wear the watch that Lauren gave me, and I would take the ring off put my watch on so I could just have a little something to let me know that, you know, hey, we're married, it's real. It was a little sign, a little signal, a little symbol of our love.

Christy is asking now that you saw Jason and Caitlyn together. Do you see them ever getting back together?

Oh? Great question. I think that's a fair question. And first of all, I'll take it well.

I'm just thinking of how much to say. I'll be honest.

I texted Caitlyn jokingly and said, so are you guys back together? And I think what came out of this weekend was that they were able to heal post breakup and move into a place of really good friendship.

Now, I will.

Say I'm not knowing both of them. I am not one hundred percent sure the door is closed forever. I loved seeing them together. If it's best for them to be broken apart, of course, I want them to do it's best for both of them. I always like them together.

So as my mom says, never say never, and so I will not say never. But I agree with Lauren. I know for a fact where they got this weekend at our wedding was to a wonderful, friendly, amicable place, and I think it was important for them just to take that step. The animosity is gone. It's so funny when you are famous like they are. You know again, they're not, you know. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck but

And they both looked great. They did I did wonder. I did wonder, yeah, if they would hook up because they both looked so good. They both had great outfits.

They both looked fit and just gorgeous, and I was like crushing.

On both of them.

And you know, look at weddings. Alcohol's flowing, people are dancing.

I ha a good time. Love is in the air. Yeah, I'll be honest.

I was secretly hopeful for not Jason Caitlin, but I was just topebal for like some surprise hookups side of the weekend. But we're still pretty fresh off of it. We might still hear some news. There were two hundred and twenty five people there, so we'll see.

We'll keep you posted.

Okay, I have three more questions. The next one is from my Leen. She wants to know who the most famous person was at your wedding party in Austin.

Louren Zema, Chris Arison, I don't know, you know that you know who it was? The Bachelor people were there. You know, Sergio Garcia is a very pretty famous you know golfer and Sage Steel on ESPN. So do you go like this depends on what world? And William Beckman was nice enough to be there.

When Meryl Streep walked in, I said, is that a bit much? I said, maryl sit down?

Are you kind of stealing our No?

No, she'd think. You know, I'm like, Meryl, can you move over Ben Higgins this year? Please?

Like people want to see Ben Higgins. So having Meryl there was fine, but I think it was good.

You know, she was a beatlister.

I was bombed that Stanley Tucci and Bono did not make it. I was holding out home.

Somehow they didn't get the wedding website link and that was probably on me, you know, I DMed it to them incessantly. No, Honey, if I can make Bono happen for you, at some point, I will. It is the great lot in life for Chris to meet Bono. He has nearly met him, no joke, been in the same room as him. But then like he thought he'd get to say hi with then Bono left too early.

Like five or six.

Can't wait to write this book. Okay, one degree of Bono. So there you go.

Amy wants to know you have been to a lot of Bachelor Nation weddings and I've seen it all. Was there anything that you wanted to and wanted not to do at your own wedding.

I do think we had the discussion about how bachelory for the Austin party to be NAPA was intimate our forty closest family and friends. No, you know, it was just a really fun dinner and dance party. But we knew we were gonna have all of our bachelor friends at this Austin party, and so we knew that we'll give a certain bachelor element to it. And also, obviously, why are people listening to this podcast because they grew to know and love Chris through The Bachelor and maybe.

Me through covering the Bachelor and.

Part Anyway, so we had that discussion and we decided on doing a few little nods, like we did have some red roses, although maybe red roses are just romance. I talked to our florist about this, which was something Pretty. Floral's out of Dallas, an incredible floral designer named Taylor Davis. She owns her own company There's Something Pretty, and man are their arrangements pretty? So check them out because she also sells these super cute Christmas wreaths online that you

Let me connect two dots and follow me here. Taylor also did Raven and Adam's wedding. She did, and that led me to think Raven and Adam we also invited. They were going to come. They are very good friends of ours. They were at another wedding and actually Raven was in the wedding.

Raven was a Ta Booth's wedding.

So our congratulations to Tea Booth who got married this weekend. God bless you. And unfortunately Raven and Adam couldn't make it, but I wish they had been there.

We love them so much.

That one hit hard because we're very close friends with them, and I know they were torn between being at two places at once. I think my favorite little nod was the signature drinks.

Yeah, this was all you too, This is Elsie.

I love to craft a signature drink. I like to google, and you're also naming them. I love to name a signature drink, so they were. We had two signature cocktails. We had the Final Rose, which was Samprey tequila, a little lemonade and some rose syrup garnished with edible rose petals and people loved it. And then we had the Bachelor no more, which Jake it how you want. Yes, he's not a bachelor anymore.

And he's not a bachelor anymore.

And that was fresh muddled strawberries, Semprey tequila, lime juice, and a little triple sex. So that was kind of a yummy, fresh strawberry margarita. And it had that pink, you know, that red rose hue to it, and then the final rose drink had that pink queue to it. So they were pretty, they were yummy, and that was like the perfect little fun nod to me.

My main thing was it wasn't necessarily things I had learned from the show. But you know, I guess, you know, having been to so many weddings and some I officiated on television, many you know, weren't on TV. You know, I guess Ari Lauren are great example. I went and hosted, hosted, officiated their wedding in Hawaii, and you pick up little things like at their wedding, it's just the end of the day. I wanted it to be us. I wanted everything to be intentional. I wanted it to be one

Okay. This final questions for me, Chris. I want to know, from looking at the photos and seeing you all with your Bachelor Nation friends, how do you feel emotionally about the show these days? Like? Did this weekend make you miss it at all?

No, it didn't make me miss my job. It made me sentimental for sure, emotional absolutely, but feel really good again as we talked about with Jason and Caitlin how cathartic it was for them to kind of maybe bury the hatchet a little bit. Maybe there was some still still some things lingering in me that I didn't even know about. That Friday night especially helped resolve, and then seeing everybody on Saturday helped resolve. Just really nothing but

Thank you so much for your questions, your comments, your support, your compliments. I have to say that one thing, Chris and I were so excited we held the secret of NAPA and we made it through the weekend in Austin, and we were so excited to be able to share this with all of you. As Chris always says, he loves love and man is a wedding a beautiful time to bring everybody you love together. And then the fact that we get the added bonus of having that love

I am even though I'm a public person, a public figure, I'm not a I don't live out loud and one thing that has really struck with me is hosting the show I hosted for so long. It's all about love. It's all about relationships, you know, officiating weddings, going through a very public divorce, and then trying to date. When I found Elz and I fell in love and we went public, there was nothing but love and support and