The Golden Bachelorette alum Joan Vassos reveals why she might have changed her mind about featuring her and fiancé Chock Chapple’s wedding on TV during an exclusive interview with Life & Style.
“I originally said we just spent all this time on film, let’s just do an intimate, family, close little wedding,” Joan, 62, tells Life & Style about their wedding plans while discussing her partnership with PanCAN PurpleStride. “But then, as I have talked to so many people out there about the hope that they felt after our show, I feel a little like we would be leaving them at the doorstep and not inviting them to the final part of our journey.”
She says, ”That just wouldn’t be the right thing to do and say we did all this on TV, and now we’re going to do the rest of our lives on our own, and you’re just not going to be part of it because that doesn’t seem fair.”
Joan notes that “people are invested” in her and Chock’s relationship after they got engaged during the season 1 finale of The Golden Bachelorette in November 2024.
She says that it’s “flattering that they care about it all, so I feel like maybe we would do a TV wedding if they approach us and ask us to do that.”
However, Joan says the couple will “do an intimate wedding and maybe release pictures or something” if ABC doesn’t approach them about televising their wedding. “But I don’t want to desert everybody that is invested in this journey,” she adds.
While Joan and Chock, 61, are open about televising their nuptials, she adds that they’re not in any rush when it comes to wedding planning.
“We kind of came off the show talking about wedding plans and then we got really busy. We had no idea how busy post-show [life] is and we’ve kind of just taken a step back,” she explains. “We’re gonna get married but just don’t know exactly when.”
Not only is her eldest son Nicholas’ upcoming wedding in August taking up their time, but she and Chock have been staying busy with “other plans.”
“We have some vacation plans and some things going into the fall. I think once we get towards the winter, we’ll maybe start making plans,” she says of wedding planning.
In addition to teasing her and Chock’s wedding plans, Joan also opens up about being an ambassador for PanCAN PurpleStride. The walk to end pancreatic cancer will take place on Saturday, April 26, at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, as well as in nearly 60 other communities across the United States.
Golden Bachelorette’s Joan Vassos Reveals Why She Changed Her Mind About Having Wedding on TV
The cause is important to Joan, as her late husband, John, died following his battle with pancreatic cancer in 2021.
“I think that everybody needs to realize this is all about funding because this is one of those cancers that hasn’t gotten a lot of funding and certainly, with recent cuts by the federal government, it’s getting even less so these walks are really important,” Joan says about the initiative. “These kinds of fundraisers are more important than they ever were before because we need to make sure that we are providing resources for researchers to make progress in this cancer.”
