Bachelor in Paradise star Kenny Braasch apparently doesn’t regret a thing about his time on the summer spin off, including his brief split from fiancee Mari Pepin-Solis.
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“No, I don’t have any regrets,” Kenny, 40, toldPeople after getting engaged to Mari on Bachelor in Paradise’s seventh-season finale.
“There were a lot of things going on, but at the end of the day, everything that happened put us where we are right now. So it’s all good.”
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On Bachelor in Paradise’s seventh season, Mari, a 25-year-old marketing manager, connected with Kenny, a boyband manager, right off the bat, and it seemed like love at first sight.
But once things were getting serious, Mari pumped the brakes and suggested the couple should continue seeing each other while keeping their options open and pursuing other possible romances in Mexico.
Kenny, a little heartbroken over Mari’s lack of commitment, therefore dated Demi Burnett, with whom he went to “The Boom Boom Room,” as well as Tia Booth.
Once Mari saw Kenny with other women, she realized how much she missed him and how she wanted him all to herself. Mari therefore apologized to Kenny and fought for him, and the pair became inseparable after their reconciliation.
“Obviously, I was very into Mari from the very beginning,” Kenny explained. “So once I sort of knew she was in the same place I was is when I started thinking, like, we might end up engaged at the end of this.”
Mari said that although their is a 15-year age difference between them, she believes they are at similar stages in life and want the same things, which helped bring them closer together and solidify their bond.
“I feel like I’m kind of in a different life stage than most people my age. And so for me, I think someone who is in a similar stage [works best],” shared Mari, who revealed on Bachelor in Paradise she’s not interested in partying and always wanted to get married young.
“We do the same things and we’ve got the same habits, and it just works really well for us. So I think that’s ultimately what I was looking for, and I found it.”
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Mari added of the significant age gap, “I think the only way that it’s noticeable is when we talk about movies or music, because [we’re] obviously [from] different generations.”
On the Bachelor in Paradise finale, Kenny popped the question with an oval-shaped diamond ring, and he said he’s now “glad that we can just go outside and walk around.”
Mari said she’s looking forward to being a normal and “real engaged couple” after she and Kenny had to hide their romance from the public for several months.
But Kenny and Mari apparently didn’t always follow the rules of their contract.
“We actually snuck [out] to [got to] a concert together. We saw Journey here in Chicago,” Mari revealed to People.
“We weren’t supposed to, but we didn’t get caught. We both wore hats. I wore a pair of glasses, and it was really late at night, so it worked out.”
As for what’s next, Mari definitely sees herself walking down the aisle in the near future.
“I have all my ideas of what I want for my wedding, but we haven’t started planning anything solid yet,” Mari noted. “The only thing that we’ve agreed on so far is that we will get married in Puerto Rico.”
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On Bachelor in Paradise’s finale, Kenny said getting engaged to a person so soon was “insane” but he’d be an “idiot” not to wife Mari up because he was absolutely crazy about the girl.
Mari, wearing a long floral white dress with her hair down and curled, then met Kenny — who had “100 percent of her heart” — on the beach in Mexico.
Mari said she felt like the luckiest woman in the world to be with Kenny, and he said he was “blown away” by Mari’s beauty at first sight and felt something entirely new for her. Mari felt she and Kenny had been tested like no other couple in Paradise.
Kenny’s hands were shaking and he needed to pause and take a deep breath, before yelling, “Mari, I am so f-cking in love with you! And I can’t see my life without you. You are an amazing woman and you’ve changed my whole outlook on life.”
In addition to Kenny and Mari, two other couples got engaged on the Bachelor in Paradise finale: Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt as well as Riley Christian and Maurissa Gunn.
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.