Bachelorette Michelle Young gets engaged to Jack Leius in 'surprise' proposal... 2 years after splitting from Nayte Olukoya
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Michelle Young won't be able to call herself a 'Bachelorette' for much longer.
The former Bachelorette, 31, who broke up with fiancé Nayte Olukoya in June 2022, has a new man in her life and she has agreed to become his wife.
Young's boyfriend, Jack Leius, 27, who is VP of sales for Covert Edge Athletics, put together in plan to surprise her and the elaborate proposal was one that seemed to come straight from a romantic comedy.
The first thing he did was 'hire' her for a commercial to be shot at Centennial Lakes in Edina, Minnesota. 'I was really excited when I found out I had the opportunity to shoot with one of my favorite brands for the second time,' the influencer told People.
At it turned out, it was all a ruse set up by her boyfriend. Leius even drew up a fake contract for Young to sign and wrote a script for the fake commercial.
The executive arranged for Young's hair and makeup to be done for the 'shoot' so that she was picture perfect.
When she arrived at the 'set' the TV personality was shocked to see her beau standing there surrounded by flowers. 'I completely froze when I saw Jack standing in the middle of this beautiful flower arch of white roses,' the reality star told the publication.
Michelle Young won't be able to call herself a 'Bachelorette' for much longer. The former Bachelorette, 31, has a new man in her life, Jack Leius, 27, and she has agreed to become his wife
'I was fooled so badly that for a moment I thought the joke was that Jack was one of the male models that I would be working with at the shoot.'
Young, who said she can usually ferret out a surprise, was shocked she had been so completely fooled.
She remembers asking Leius, 'Why are you here? Are you the other model? Aren’t you supposed to be in a meeting right now?'
Leius quickly answered those questions by reaching into his pocket, getting down on one knee, and popping the big question.
'I’ve always had a very strong intuition and could see surprises from miles away, even since I was little. I hadn’t even slightly sensed this was happening today,' she said of the October 23 proposal.
The sports apparel executive presented his lady love with a 3.56-carat emerald-cut diamond that he designed with Wedding Day Diamonds.
'I tried to say yes several times but was in shock that no words really came out.
'There were a lot of happy tears and of course I said YES!' she explained.
Leius, who is VP of sales for Covert Edge Athletics put together in plan to surprise her and the elaborate proposal was one that seemed to come straight from a romantic comedy
He tricked the TV personality into thinking she was shooting a commercial, but it was all a plan for a picture perfect surprise proposal. 'I completely froze when I saw Jack standing in the middle of this beautiful flower arch of white roses,' she told People
For Leius, the biggest stress was trying to keep Young in the dark until the big moment.
'The biggest worry for me was that her intuition really does catch on to everything. There were so many moments we crossed that we thought she might catch on.'
However, he and Young's team worked together to pull off the big moment. 'Her management team and I are pretty proud about pulling off the big surprise, and we all have a lot of funny stories about how many details it took to make this entire day believable,' he told the publication.
The ploy was so successful that Young wondered if she needed to return to the set the next day for the shoot.
The couple met a little more than a year ago when they were introduced by a mutual friend. They hit it off instantly and after their first day they 'spent nearly every moment of the next four days together and quickly made the decision to be exclusive after doing so,' Young said.
The pair made their relationship official in October 2023, and Leius was Young's plus-one for Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist's Golden Bachelor Wedding in January.
The couple met a little more than a year ago when they were introduced by a mutual friend. They hit it off instantly and made their relationship official in October 2023
Young, who was the runner-up on season 25 of The Bachelor, and headlined season 18 of The Bachelorette said of her fiancé 'You don’t have to spend much time with him to see how much he cares about people in general'
Young, who was the runner-up on season 25 of The Bachelor, and headlined season 18 of The Bachelorette said of her fiancé 'You don’t have to spend much time with him to see how much he cares about people in general.'
'When you’re asked those cheesy types of questions about 'who comes to mind when you hear the words trustworthy, genuine, considerate, I’ve noticed he’s the person who first comes to mind — not just for me but for so many others who have crossed paths with him. I think that speaks volumes about his character.'
The next big step for the couple is to plan what they anticipate will be a rather large wedding.
'We both have so many people close to us that we want on our special day, so definitely a big enough wedding to include them,' Young said.
