A bachelor no more! Chris Harrison and Lauren Zima are officially engaged after three years of dating.
The former Bachelor Nation host, 50, and the Entertainment Tonight personality, 33, announced the news via Instagram on Monday, October 25. “I love you @laurenzima,” the Perfect Letter author wrote alongside a photo of himself getting down on one knee. “The next chapter starts now!”
In another photo, the happy couple clinked champagne glasses while Zima showed off her new ring. “We tell each other this all the time, and we said it again in an unforgettably beautiful moment this weekend: I didn’t know love could be like this,” she wrote via Instagram. “You are the most incredible partner. Thank you for loving me, championing me and asking me to marry you. Here’s to the next amazing chapter, and all the rest.”
Harrison later told Us Weekly that he and his now-fiancée are “both incredibly happy,” going on to share details of their “amazingly romantic weekend” in wine country.
“I proposed to Lauren at a very special spot that means a lot to both of us in Napa Valley at Brand Vineyard,” he explained.
The duo began dating in August 2018 after crossing paths professionally several times. In January 2019, they made their relationship red carpet official at a pre-Screen Actors Guild awards party.
The couple fueled marriage speculation in April when Harrison posted a photo that showed Zima wearing a wedding-esque white dress to Instagram.
“‘I’d stop the world and melt with you’ @laurenzima there’s no one I’d rather celebrate love with and I’ll be your plus one anytime,” the Texas native wrote alongside the romantic snapshot.
Fans and Bachelor Nation members alike were confused by the post and offered their congratulations to the couple before Zima clarified she was wearing a bridesmaid’s dress.
“Wow you attend one wedding together … do one chicken dance and your hitched!” Harrison joked in a comment. “I do love this bridesmaid though
.”
Zima revealed during a July 2019 episode of Nick Viall‘s “The Viall Files” podcast that she made the first move on her now-husband. The duo had known each other for years prior to dating.
“Oh, I DM’d him,” she confessed. “He just gave me a different vibe. … It was fairly overt. He mentioned something about picking his kids up or something. He somehow brought up being single, I think. And then I said something like, ‘I’m single now,’ and he was like, ‘Oh.’ But I said it in a more eloquent way. God, I don’t know. Somehow it was communicated … I opened the door and he walked through.”
Soon after the DM, the couple went out for a drink. Up to that point, Zima said their relationship had been strictly professional.
“Not in a negative way … but I never looked at him and ever considered [if] I found him attractive,” she told Viall.
In August 2019, the Chicago native shared a tribute to her beau on Instagram for their one-year anniversary.
“Thank you for adding to my life with your positivity, perspective and patience, and for supporting me in becoming exactly who I want to be,” she wrote. “Thank you for being a source of joy, and for knowing that life is good when love is easy. Oh, and big thanks for the copious amounts of wine. ”
Harrison was previously married to his college sweetheart, Gwen Harrison. After 18 years of marriage, the former pair — who share son Joshua and daughter Taylor — divorced in 2012.