Bachelor Nation stars Dean Unglert and Caelynn Miller-Keyes are married!
Unglert, 32, and Miller-Keyes, 28, tied the knot on Saturday, September 23, in Meredith, Colorado, People reports.
The couple met on season 6 of Bachelor in Paradise. Although they quickly became one of the strongest couples in Paradise, Unglert dumped Miller-Keyes mid-season, telling her that he “know[s] that [he] wouldn’t be where [she needs him to be] at the end of this.”
Although he left Miller-Keyes in tears, Unglert eventually returned to the shores of Paradise later in the season to try and win her back. “I ran the good thing and I decided to leave before I let our relationship really become what it possibly could be,” the Bachelor Winter Games alum confessed.
“After a lot of self-reflection and introspection and thought, I’ve decided I need to stop running away from the good things in life,” Unglert told Miller-Keyes at the time. “I came here to ask you if you would leave paradise with me today.”
The social media consultant ultimately decided to leave with Unglert, and the pair spent years traveling around the world in an RV and creating travel content together.
The twosome shocked everyone with the news of their official engagement in October 2022. Unglert famously said on The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever!, “I don’t need the title of husband to show the world that I’m committed to one person.”
In December 2019, he exclusively told Us Weekly that a wedding was “never going to happen.” Referring to himself as “super unconventional,” he confessed that Miller-Keyes was more “conventional” in her outlook on marriage.
Miller-Keyes later told Us in November 2019 that marriage was a “maybe” that would be “way down [their] future.”
Despite Unglert’s reluctance to tie the knot, he and Miller-Keyes both began wearing rings in February 2020. At first, the pair were allusive about the meaning of the jewelry and what it signified for the status of their relationship.
Even the couple’s close friends Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon couldn’t confirm the couple’s relationship status for almost a full year after they were first spotted wearing the rings. On an April 2020 episode of Us’ “Here for the Right Reasons,” Haibon exclusively said that the pair “honestly won’t tell us for real, which is really funny, but completely true, [but we think] that they had like some commitment ceremony in Europe.”
When asked about the significance of the bands on The Greatest Seasons — Ever! two months later, Unglert and Miller-Keyes finally revealed the meaning of the rings. “I’m committed to one person, and so the fact that I’m wearing the ring is showing just that,” Unglert confessed.
Miller-Keyes added: “He started wearing a hair tie around his ring finger, just to fight women off. … And I liked the idea. And then we just talked about getting rings. It’s just nice to know that we’re in a strong, committed relationship without necessarily having to get the government involved, as Dean likes to say.”
But Unglert eventually had a change of heart about getting married. In October 2022, three years after hitting the sand in Paradise, Unglert revealed that he had finally popped the question.
On his “Help! I Suck at Dating” podcast, the co-host shared the details of his proposal at the end of a “scary” 11-hour hike in Hawaii. “Caelynn was very angry at me for taking her there,” he explained. “She was crying. She was angry. She was cursing at me, but she stuck with it and she eventually finished it.”
He continued, “When she was losing it during the difficult part of the hike, in my head, I was like, ‘I’m going to ask you to marry me in, like, four hours, so you need to turn this attitude around.”
Miller-Keyes told Us exclusively in a November 2022 interview her perspective on the “crazy” proposal. “I’m not a hiker, I’m not in hiking shape,” she joked, before adding that it was “easier on the way back.”
The beauty influencer revealed that she was enjoying their “really fun fiancé phase,” sharing that the duo would be getting “married in Aspen” so that “all of [their] friends” could attend the ceremony. She also revealed that she had already booked appointments for the “two dresses” she ultimately wore on her wedding day.
In a nod to the more non-traditional aspects of their relationship, the newlyweds plan to both change their last names, choosing now to both go by “Bell.” Miller-Keyes explained the choice on her Instagram Story in October 2022, writing “Bell is Dean’s mom’s maiden name.”
Ultimately, the Bachelor season 23 alum told Us that it was worth the wait. “A friend told me, ‘Enjoy every moment, enjoy the engagement, enjoy the wedding, don’t rush anything,” she gushed in November 2022. “So thankfully I listened to her,” she added, “cause I was like, ‘I wanna try on dresses, I wanna do all these things before I’m even engaged,’ which is ridiculous. So thankfully I listened.”
