“We Love Each Other, But…”: Joan Vassos and Chock Chapple Get Honest About Why There’s Still No Wedding Plans

Golden Bachelorette stars Joan Vassos and Chock Chapple are getting candid about whether marriage is in their future. 

The couple — who got engaged in Bora Bora during the finale of the ABC show, which aired in November 2024 — revealed on the June 3 episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast that they have not touched wedding planning and are still taking things slow. 

“I said we've been super busy, but that's really not the whole thing,” Vassos admitted on the podcast. 

“... You date kind of in a weird, backwards way [on The Bachelor]. You go and you date really intensely and you take this leap of faith and you get engaged, and then you come off the show and then you get to know each other, you know, in those everyday mundane ways that you haven't done yet,” Vassos, 61, explained.  

“You've done the big stuff. You haven't done the little stuff. So we're kinda doing that,” she added. “And I'm not saying that that's the reason we haven't made wedding plans.” 

The school administrator noted that she and Chapple, 61, are “both really busy,” and so they were focusing on “having fun” before taking that bigger, next step in their relationship.  

“We're gonna make wedding plans,” Vassos said. “It just doesn't seem like it's a rush. We don't have, like, a biological clock. And it also seems to me, a little bit, when you get married, you really probably should be living together at that point.”

That is something that is still out of reach for Vassos and Chapple, who live and work in Maryland and Kansas, respectively, and commute “about every two weeks” to see each other. Vassos said they “still have a little bit of time” that they “need to be apart,” but the saying about “absence” making “the heart grow fonder is a little bit true.”

“I'm jumping out of the car, so, so excited to see him when he comes into town, or the same thing when I go to Kansas,” she said. “So [it] doesn't seem like there's a rush to get married.” 

“It seems like [marriage] would maybe put a strain on our relationship at this point because we're both really busy and it's working out really well the way we're doing it now,” she added. 

The couple previously shared in an interview with Bachelor Nation in March how they keep their relationship strong. Chapple noted they were “always checking” their calendars to find moments where they could be together, despite their busy family lives or work. 

“It does take effort; it’s not as easy as, ‘Hey, let’s get together tonight because you’re right down the road,’ so you have to make an effort,” Vassos chimed in. “But it’s actually a fun way to kind of do it.”

The reality star continued. “... We can meet in fun places. Like, we’ve been to Cancún, and we meet in L.A. all the time. We go to New York. So with our meetings, we find something fun to do. We get great opportunities and we try to make it work for us.”