If at first you don't succeed in front of the camera...
... try, try again in private.
This is the lesson on love Ben Higgins can now vouch for, as the former Bachelor star announced this weekend that he's engaged to Jessica Clarke.
Clarke actually shared photos of the proposal in Instagram, penning as a caption to the picture down below:
“I don’t remember everything you said, but I know that I said yes.
"I woke up in a dream today and I get to live in this dream every day from now on (eeeep)."
Higgins himself spoke with Entertainment Tonight about popping the major to Clarke in Franklin, Tennessee, in front of their families and loved ones.
As it turns out, he and Clarke has been isolating themselves due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but drove to the aforementioned town on Friday... just too see Clarke's parents, Ben told his girlfriend.
But then... SURPRISE!
"I went back to a pond behind her house, and we had set it up with sunflowers near a bench," the reality star explained to ET, adding:
It's right in their backyard, but a little hidden. I proposed and her family and mine were watching from a distance, and then we all celebrated together."
What a fun, special and unique way to propose during a very difficult and unsettling time in this country.
"I was super nervous. She's my best friend, my partner and I love her. I was nervous to kind of do this whole thing in front of her," Higgins added. "I wasn't anxious, it's just a big moment!"
Higgins was previously engaged to Lauren Bushnell, whom he met and proposed to during his season of The Bachelor in 2016.
The two even starred in their own spinoff series on Freeform, but then called off their engaged in May of 2017.
Prior to that romance, Higgins was the runner-up on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season 11 of The Bachelorette in 2015.
He's been in the spotlight of this program for many years now -- and yet he had to leave the franchise in order to find his soulmate.
The Bachelor alum and Clarke made their relationship Instagram official in February 2019, just a few months after Higgins “successfully” slid into her DMs a few months earlier.
Talking to Us Weekly in January, Higgins made it sound like an engagement was inevitable.
“I don’t think that’s a question,” he told this tabloid at the time, continuing as folloows:
“We’re great. It’s fun. It’s just healthy...
"I think she would say the same. Our relationship is healthy. I’m a better version of myself, a more free version of myself than I’ve been in a while.”
In response to the romantic news, many members of Bachelor Nation have sent Higigins a note of congratulations on social media.
“So flipping happy for you two and can’t wait to celebrate with so much champagne!” wrote former Bachelorette star Becca Kufrin, for example.
“Your love, support, and respect for one another is beautiful, and I can’t wait to see where this life will take you together!”
Added Raven Gates:
“Oh my heart is MELTING!!! I am sooo happy for you guys."
“I’m soooo happy for you guys!!!” wrote Bachelor veteran Ashley Iaconetti. “Your love is so beautiful! I’m so glad you found each other! Look at what Instagram did!!
We concur!
Congrats to Higgins and Clarke!
May they live happily ever after.
