Clare Crawley recently revealed a dramatic twist about her union to Ryan Dawkins: It wasn't legal. The Bachelorette alum explained to E! News why it took more than a year to journey down the aisle.
Can we steal you for a second?
Because Clare Crawley would like to explain why it took her and husband Ryan Dawkins more than a year to make their marriage officially official.
A few months after the Mascot Sports CEO proposed beneath a sky of lanterns at Las Vegas' RiSE Festival in October 2022, "We're like, 'Okay, let's start planning our wedding,'" Clare detailed in an exclusive interview with E! News. "We wanted to do it soon. We don't want anything big or wild."
But when her mom Lilia—who's been battling dementia—"got really, really sick," explained the former Bachelorette, "It really got bumped up fast."
Thankfully, Ryan accepted her suggestion to throw together their vows within the week.
"I said, 'I don't care about the tablecloths, the flowers, I don't care about all the extra stuff that makes weddings beautiful. I care about who's there, and I care that my mom gets to witness that,'" Clare, 43, recalled of her stance. And since her dad James passed before seeing her find her person, "It was a big deal to me to have my mom there."
And while their February 2023 wedding—at the state capitol in Sacramento, where they shared their first kiss—was the intimate affair of her dreams, one detail was missing.
"We were happy to get it done, to be husband and wife," Clare noted of remaining unbothered by the fact that they never got their marriage license. They had already begun the surrogacy process and soon after learned they were expecting daughter Rowen, now 9 months, plus they were closing on their dream California home.
"So with the marriage license, in the flow of life, it kind of got forgetten," she explained. "And to us, even to this day, if we didn't have a piece of paper, we're still husband and wife. We're still so committed to each other, so madly in love with each other."
But as they began filling out their taxes this year, "I was like, 'Wait a minute, we didn't get our marriage license!'"
While they briefly contemplated forgoing the legalities—"I was like, 'Do we need to have it? Let's just Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell it'"—they decided that their journey should take them back down the aisle.
"It was just time," explained Clare. "We were ready for it."
And they knew that Las Vegas was the perfect place to fall in love make it official.
"We thought if we were going to get the paperwork, we've got to do a fun ceremony," she said. "So we're like, we have to do Elvis in Vegas."
And they couldn't help falling in love with the whole Sin City schtick.
Following their ceremony at The Little White Wedding Chapel, "We drove around in the pink Cadillac," Clare recounted, "and went on the strip. It was so much fun!"
The good times have been rolling since she first encountered the sporty girl dad (he has two daughters from a previous relationship) in late 2021.
After stints on The Bachelor, the first two seasons of Bachelor in Paradise, The Bachelor Winter Games and finally a turn as the Bachelorette that led to her off-and-on engagement to model Dale Moss, "I was very broken," Clare admitted, "and in a very dark spot coming off of my previous relationship that was just the worst example of what relationships are."
So while she recognized that the Ironman athlete was "definitely boyfriend material and future husband material," she recounted, "I wasn't ready for that. I was just in such a bad spot and I knew for somebody this amazing, I needed to bring amazing to the table as well. And even though he wanted and loved me in my lowest, I actually took a few months of saying, let me heal myself so I can be a good girlfriend to you or to whoever. I need to feel complete for myself first."
His response solidified that she'd found the guy truly deserving of that proverbial final rose.
"He said, 'Take as much time as you need,'" Clare shared. "And so I did."
Months later, she pitched a date idea.
"I finally messaged him back, and I was like, 'Hey, do you want to go to a baseball game?'" she recounted. "And that kind of started it off again, and we went to the game." Since then, she added, "It was just game on. We were together every day after that."
Undeterred by her "realist" best friend reminding her that "fairy tales aren't real," she confidently declared she'd nabbed the perfect catch.
Recalled Clare, "I was like, 'He's the most amazing human. He's everything I ever wanted, always.'"
Years on, she knows she scored, particularly as they raise their very active daughter, who began walking at 7 months, mere days after she started crawling.
"When a child comes into the world, I think it can be testing on a relationship," she noted. "With us, it truly has brought us so much closer together, because Ryan is the best dad."
With so much in-game experience, he assures her, for instance, that no, Rowen isn't choking, she's just learning how to chew solid foods.
"He's the most calming force ever," said Clare. "That's what makes us a good team, is that he is very grounding for me and, somebody who's like me, who's a worrier and gets worked up over things, he just brings me back down. And it really does show in the hard moments how we balance each other out."
Of course, she's not the only franchise star raising a glass to a bright future. Check out the other Bachelor Nation alums who let their walls down and leaned into the journey.
