Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Lauren Burnham are here to steal Becca Kufrin’s thunder.
Once again.
With Becca set to debut as The Bachelorette this coming Monday, Arie and Lauren went out of their way on Wednesday morning to upstage their nemesis and make a major announcement…
The controversial couple has announced its wedding date!
And its wedding location!
(We’re mostly kidding about the whole nemesis thing, but Arie did dump Becca on national television after The Bachelor finale and then propose to Lauren on the After the Rose special that same night.)
“We are very excited to tell you guys that we have booked a venue,” Burnham said on The View today. “We’re getting married in Hawaii on January 12th next year!”
Arie then provided a few more details:
“It’s in Maui – it’s at Haiku Mill which has this beautiful, old world feel with a lot of vines and greenery.
“It’s not your typical beach wedding. And it’s a private wedding, so not on TV – just a close group of friends. Probably 100 guests.”
Wow. We’re actually surprised by this last part of Arie’s statement.
Based on the way he and Lauren have acted and a few things they’ve said, we simply assumed the stars would get married on television.
(Then again, we also assume they won’t even make it to the altar because, come on, does any couple who supposedly fell in love on The Bachelor?)
“We’re just really happy with each other and we vibe well together,” Lauren said. “We’re best friends, so we’re just ready for that next step.”
She even said they would take this marital step “tomorrow” if they could, but there’s too much to plan for that to be realistic.
Arie, of course, proposed to Kufrin to wrap up his season as The Bachelor.
Two months later, he broke up with her… while network cameras rolled.
He then asked for Lauren’s hand in marriage, stunning viewers who had witnessed the Becca proposal just an hour or so earlier in real time on their TV.
“It was a big risk to do what I did and I know that it wasn’t a popular decision. But it was a decision I had to make for myself. … I knew that Lauren was the person I was supposed to be with,” Luyendyk Jr. said of the moment.
He continued:
“I never watched the finale, so we don’t really know how that breakup looked on TV. But breakups are hard, and I think that everyone handles it in a different way.
“They say it was unedited, but it was edited. You’re not in control of the editing room and you can’t really control what they show.”
No one out there blames Arie if his heart told him to go with Lauren instead of Becca.
But Luyendyk has shaded Kufrin here and there for some reason and he could have chosen to end their engagement in private, as opposed to in front of millions of people.
However, don’t expect Arie or Lauren to apologize for how they ended up here.
“Our relationship is so unique and it’s nothing that I’ve ever had before,” Burnham said, concluding today:
“So the fact that he was willing to take that risk and all of America hating him to be with me, that means a lot to me.”
