Getting the gang back together! Bachelorette alum JJ Lane already knows which Bachelor Nation buddies he wants to invite to his wedding to Kayla Hughes.
“We want to invite people we are genuinely friends with,” Lane, 36, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, February 5, more than one week after proposing to the former NFL cheerleader. “We want to just celebrate and have fun and make it a big party.”
Some past contestants who will snag an RSVP? “Tanner [Tolbert], Jared [Haibon], Clint [Arlis], Ben Higgins, my actual friends that I made during the show will absolutely be invited,” he added.
The investment banker, who previously competed on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season in 2015, is thankful for those close friendships. “I know Jared’s getting married [to Ashley Iaconetti] in August and they’re sending the invites here shortly to me and I’m pumped for his situation. I got to see Tanner get married [to Jade Roper],” Lane recalled. “It’s funny how we all are finally getting married, having kids and yet, on one hand, it seems like just yesterday we were on the show. But then you look back and that was four years ago, so that’s just crazy. It’s hard to fathom.”
Lane and Hughes didn’t start wedding planning right after getting engaged beachside in Hawaii. Instead, the couple celebrated the impending nuptials with his 6-year-old daughter, Gemma, and parents.
“We just enjoyed it. We relaxed and we decided that we weren’t going to plan the wedding or anything during that week. We were just going to soak it in,” he told Us. “And I think Kayla celebrated by staring at her finger non-stop. It’s been fun just seeing her [have] a little bit more pep in here step, I’d say. She just seems so bubbly right now, so happy.”
Lane had been planning the perfect proposal for nearly four months. “I was kind of teasing her with it. She would ask me, like, ‘When are you going to propose?’ So I would tease her. I would say, ‘Look, it’s sometime between now and April.’ … She’d be like, ‘That’s six months!’ I was like, ‘Look, I would recommend you have your nails done at all times between now and April,’” Lane recalled. “It was like, half a joke, but I also knew that if she got proposed to and if she hadn’t done her nails or anything like that, she’d be pissed. I’ve been around enough to know that. So yeah, it was fun. I dangled it over her head a little bit.”
Although Lane had to make some speedy improvisations before popping the question, Hughes was totally surprised. He gushed to Us: “Kayla admitted to me, ‘I honestly had no clue.’”
