'Golden Bachelorette' couple Joan and Chock on reality-TV love, jealousy and wedding plans

LOS ANGELES — The morning after Joan Vassos and Chock Chapple revealed their Bora Bora fantasy engagement on ABC's "Golden Bachelorette" finale Wednesday, America's golden couple was ready to talk about their reality-TV love story.

They are not only awake but gracious and animated despite celebrating their first night in public together as a couple until midnight. But before they can dive into the finale details — how Vassos, 61, bid farewell to emergency-room doctor Guy Gansert, 66, to prompt the proposal from Chapple, 60, the Wichita, Kansas, insurance executive — there's a pesky jewelry issue.

"I'm getting rid of this other ring," Vassos says, tucking away a less ostentatious bauble that might distract from the emerald-cut diamond platinum ring she giddily accepted from Chapple in the finale's beach proposal. Fear not reality-romantics! The bling-tastic engagement symbol and the couple's reality love are still rocking.

"This ring is staying on," she says, pulling away from Chapple's perpetual hand-hold to show off the 4-carat sparkler. "We started in paradise, and we've only become more solid."

Joan says 'Yes!' to Bora Bora love Chock's 'Golden Bachelorette' finale fantasy beach proposal

The couple has made it through Day One of their public partnership, which started last summer when 24 senior bachelors began vying for Vassos in the first-ever "Golden Bachelorette." In reality, they've been together since August 1, when the show wrapped production with a blissful Vassos, a widow who lost her husband John in 2021 to pancreatic cancer, and Chapple, whose fiancée Kathy died of cancer in 2022.

Along with alone time in their respective homes (Vassos lives in Rockville, Maryland) the couple spent significant time holed up in six top-secret locations. They say that was a good thing.

"Dating on reality TV is really strange. And this all happened really fast," says Vassos, a contestant on Gerry Turner's "Golden Bachelor" season last fall. "You have the essentials to make the decision. talking about values and what your future looks like. But you don't actually cook in a kitchen together and just share a home."

"They call them happy couple retreats," says Chapple, who still doesn't know Vassos' middle name (Yvonne), though she knows his. But Chapple learned that Vassos is a crossword puzzle whiz and already welcomes her strong wardrobe opinions. "She'll just go 'no, no' to those shoes. She did that this morning. It's like we've been married for years."

The two watched most of the "Golden Bachelorette" episodes separately, but together viewed their Episode 2 solo Disneyland date, "which was really the start of this relationship," says Vassos. "Everything was so natural right away."

Chapple admits it was hard watching Vassos kiss other suitors with whom he bonded in the Bachelor Mansion. "My response to that is that I liked the guys," he says. "I preferred it to be with guys that I knew. You want them to have the best life, but I wanted Joan."

Yet Chapple won't watch the Fantasy Suites episode, in which Vassos was devastated as Chicago salon owner Pascal Ibgui 69, said he wasn't in love with her and quit the show.

"I haven't, and I prefer not to watch that one," he says, exhaling. "Pascal and I are brothers. I wish him the best."

The couple slid into the studio green room for Wednesday's live finale, so they haven't watched the Bora Bora episode, either. But they are ecstatic about how it went down, including the ring — although Chapple was not able to consult with Bachelor Nation jeweler Neil Lane. "But he did a better job with it than I would have done. The important thing is that Joan is happy with it."

How will Joan and Chock handle the distance issue?

The couple are also in sync with the 1,230-mile distance between their homes in Maryland and Kansas. The inability to settle on a joint location partly sunk last year's "Golden Bachelor" couple, Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist, who announced their divorce 100 days after their lavish January TV wedding.

Chapple and Vassos are looking for a shared home in New York City, and they will fly back and forth to their hometowns. "We don't consider that a negative," says Vassos. "We can share in each other's lives in different states and learn about each other. I've never thought I'd say 'I'm dying to go to Kansas,' but I actually am."

When will Joan and Chock get married?

The inevitable wedding question never even came up when the new couple was interviewed by host Jesse Palmer during Wednesday's "After the Final Rose" — likely because Turner and Nist's eternal TV vows flamed out so quickly. Vassos previously told USA TODAY she had felt "pressure" as the next "Golden" lead after the public fallout over that relationship flop. This couple says they'll hold fire and get to know each other.

"But it didn't have anything to do with Gerry and Theresa," says Vassos. "That was a more unusual ending, because (divorce) happened so quickly."

"To be frank, that failed, and how it failed is their business," says Chapple. "We don't want that to happen. We're taking it slow. We're in love, we're engaged, but we want time to make sure it's absolutely right. The pressure is only me going, 'I've got a great partner. I want it to work.'"

But they are eyeing a wedding, maybe even for reality cameras. "There will be a Chapter 2. We want to get married," says Vassos, who expects to finalize plans within a year. "But we're still in the relationship part where everything is new, like holding hands in public, going to dinner. We just want to live life like normal people for a bit."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Are 'Golden Bachelorette' couple Joan and Chock still together?