Golden Bachelorette’s Joan Vassos Explains Wedding Delay with Chock Chapple

It has been a year since Chock Chapple got down on one knee and proposed to Joan Vassos during the season finale of The Golden Bachelorette.

The couple – who split their time between her home in Maryland and his life in Kansas – celebrated the milestone in Bora Bora where Chapple presented Vassos with a custom Neil Lane Couture diamond ring.

Predictably, fans are desperate to know when they will tie the knot – but Vassos, 62, is in no rush.

In fact, the reality TV star hasn’t even thought about their nuptials, with the pair currently focused on her son’s upcoming wedding.

‘I’m so flattered that people watch the show and are invested in us,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘And it’s actually flattering.

‘I just got one child [Nicholas] married last summer, and then I have another one to get married this summer. So my son, my youngest [Luke] is getting married, and then I’ll probably start thinking about our wedding.’

The PanCAN (Pancreatic Cancer Action Network) ambassador has four adult children – Nicholas, 35, Erica, 34, Allison, 31, and Luke, 29 – whom she shares with her late husband, John Vassos. She also has three grandchildren.

She continued: ‘Not in a rush. I know we’re not like having babies, we’re not doing anything major. And we are really happy the way we are right now. 

‘We travel and we just get to do all the fun things, and I mean, you know, marriage is meaningful. I believe in it. I just don’t think that we need to do it in any rush. We just do it kind of when it’s comfortable for us.’

Vassos has made it clear that her children come first. Before appearing on the show, she was a contestant on Gerry Turner’s season of The Golden Bachelor, but she quit midway through to support her daughter Erica after she suffered a difficult delivery with her first child.

Chapple, 62, has children Taylor, 26, and Tyler, 24, with his ex-wife Heather.

With their own families, Vassos said it can be hard to spend the holidays together. 

‘I know it’s really hard,’ she said. ‘He’s doing Thanksgiving in Wichita [Kansas]. I’m staying where I live and then we’re getting together for Christmas.

‘But we’re going to see each other a lot over the holidays because we got a place here in New York City.’

She continued: ‘We’re kind of taking a break at Thanksgiving only because we have so many other things kind of planned before, before Thanksgiving and after Thanksgiving.’

The couple and their families recently took a week-long vacation to Disney.

The Golden Bachelorette lead went on to explain that they rented out an Airbnb for the month of December because they love the Big Apple and how ‘magical’ it is this time of year.

But, in terms of whether they will find a permanent place to make their home, is still up in the air. 

‘We’re making progress,’ she teased. ‘We found that if you don’t live in [New York City], it’s very hard to find a place because they come up and they’re gone in a day. And if you’re not here to look at it, that you can’t do it. 

‘So, it was a lot harder than we thought, and we were a lot busier than we thought.

‘We didn’t realize that we were going to be as busy as we were like this whole last year. 

‘I think things didn’t really settle down yet, but we have committed to be here for the whole month of December, so maybe we’ll find something – fingers crossed.’

Despite not having a wedding plan or a house, Vassos – who refuses to wear her engagement ring in NYC – is grateful that she found Chapple.

‘I mean, I never thought at the age of 60, which is when I went on Golden Bachelor, when Gerry was the bachelor, that, first of all, I’d ever be on TV,’ she said. 

‘I grew up, and I’ve always been kind of shy. I was a computer science major in college. I was a little nerdy, and I went on the show, and I made all these wonderful friends. They brought me kind of out of my shell. 

‘And, yeah, that’s completely life changing. And that led to me being the Golden Bachelorette, which was even more life changing.’

She added: ‘And I even got the chance to find, you know, love for the second time in my life. I was married for 32 years, but I wasn’t ready to give up on that life.

‘I felt like at the age of 60, I was Bachelorette at 61, that I had some years ahead of me that maybe I could have another love. And I got to find it.’

The school administrator isn’t one to take life for granted. Her ex-husband John died in January 2021 from pancreatic cancer. 

Now, she’s honoring him by helping promote PanCAN, which she’s an ambassador for to help others with the resources needed for those affected by the disease.

She said: ‘I thought, “Wow, it would have been so nice to have this as a resource when we were going through it,” because you never expect that you’re going to go through this weird journey, and it’s a cancer that so few people have, or I thought so few people had. 

‘I didn’t have any resources. So, when I looked at their website and I saw all the things that they offered, I thought, “Okay, this is a great partnership.”

‘I was so excited to have this opportunity to use this little voice that I have to do something good.’

Vassos’ days on reality TV aren’t over yet. She revealed she was cut from this season of Dancing with the Stars as she believes a Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star – either Whitney Leavitt or Jennifer Affleck – took the spot of a Bachelor star.

She will next appear on HGTV’s Bachelor Mansion Takeover sometime in the new year where she joins former contestants from the franchise to remodel the mansion in Agoura Hills. She also revealed she will be making an appearance on Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette once that airs in March 2026.