Bachelor Alum Ben Higgins Is Engaged To Girlfriend Jess Clarke

Source: Twitter

Bachelor alum Ben Higgins and his girlfriend Jess Clarke are engaged. The happy news comes a little over one year after the couple went Instagram official with their relationship in February 2019.

Higgins and Clarke started dating after he “successfully” slid into her DMs a few weeks earlier. Back in January, Higgins said that 2020 would be the year that he proposed to Clarke.

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“I don’t think that’s a question,” Higgins said at the time. “We’re great. It’s fun. It’s just healthy … I think she would say the same. Our relationship is healthy. I’m a better version of myself, a more free version of myself than I’ve been in a while.”

Earlier this week, Higgins revealed that he and Clarke were self-quarantining together at his parents’ home in Denver, which was a big transition from their long-distance relationship. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Higgins was at his home in Denver and she was home in Nashville, Tennessee.

Higgins says that they decided that Clarke would wait until after they were engaged to move to Denver, which he believes was a smart and wise decision. The Bachelor alum says that he and Clarke took steps and communicated about the best way to go about that.

Higgins says that spending this time together is helping them prepare for the next step in their relationship. The 30-year-old says that this time with Clarke has made him excited for the future.

After the news of their engagement broke, Clarke posted pics of the romantic proposal but admitted she couldn’t remember exactly what Higgins said when he popped the question. However, the 24-year-old does remember that she said “yes.”

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Higgins proposed on Saturday, March 28th in Franklin, Tennessee, on a grassy hill beside a pond. Clarke says that she woke up in a dream today, and she gets to live in this dream every day from now on.

Jess Clarke also posted pics of her friends’ reaction to the proposal when she told them over FaceTime that she had a ring on her finger.

Originally, Ben Higgins had planned to propose in New York City, but he changed those plans amid the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, the couple drove to Tennessee so they could see her family, who already knew he was planning to propose.

“I went back to a pond behind her house, and we had set it up with sunflowers near a bench. It’s right in their backyard, but a little hidden,” Higgins told Entertainment Tonight. “I proposed and her family and mine were watching from a distance, and then we all celebrated together.”