Tessa Enzy Tookes always knew she would end up on TV. In fact, her high school classmates at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Conn., voted her “Most Likely to Be on a Reality Show.”
Which is why her appearance on season 26 of “The Bachelor,” which aired in 2022, did not surprise those closest to her.
Ms. Tookes, 29, was also drawn to a job that revolved around love and dating. After graduating from N.Y.U. Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a concentration in music and meaning in 2017, she worked as a people operations specialist for Hinge.
But, still, she felt “perpetually stuck.”
“I wasn’t feeling that inspired by my relationship, by my apartment, by anything,” said Ms. Tookes, who had moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, from her hometown, Stamford, Conn.
As she was entering her mid-20s, she was looking for an interesting, exciting experience. That turned out to be competing for the affection of one man on national television, with nearly 30 other women. Almost immediately, the experience was a big blow to her self esteem.
“I remember the first night, I was right back to where I was in high school, feeling not super confident,” Ms. Tookes said. “I didn’t think that I would get a rose. In hindsight, I didn’t even really have feelings for the person.” But when she didn’t get the immediate validation from first impressions, she couldn’t help but feel a bit insecure.
By the third episode of the show, she was sent home. She left knowing that she had a lot to learn about herself.
In the next year, the longtime country music fan rebranded herself as a “disco cowboy,” as she put it. “‘I need to stop caring about what people think about me and listen to country music openly, dress how I want,” she recalled thinking.
She said she felt a renewed sense of self — she was dating in Brooklyn, exploring the city with friends and meeting new people. She felt ready for another experience, and was recruited to join the cast of season 2 of “Bachelor in Paradise Canada,” a Canadian spinoff of “Bachelor in Paradise.”
There, she met Joey Blake Kirchner, whose involvement in the show was a bit more abrupt. Mr. Kirchner, who grew up in a small town called Redcliff in Alberta, Canada, was scouted to be a model at a mall when he was 15. He spent years in New York and Toronto, booking modeling and acting gigs. When the pandemic set in, he moved back to Alberta and worked in construction.
Producers of “Bachelor in Paradise” reached out to his agency in search of contestants. Mr. Kirchner, 34, didn’t know much about the “Bachelor” franchise. But, he said, he “knew it was a hell of a lot better than putting posts in the ground in minus 40-degree weather.” He sent in an audition tape and was cast for the first season of the show.
When he watched an episode, he thought to himself, “What did I get myself into? This is crazy. This is really cheesy.” Since he had already agreed, he thought he would make the most of it. “What do I have to lose?” he recalled thinking.
After appearing on the first season of the show, he learned he actually had a lot to lose: He fell hard for someone who he said was ultimately not a good match for him. When he was asked to return to the show for the second season, he immediately declined. But when they offered to increase his pay, he had a change of heart.
“Deep down, did I think maybe there’s a chance of meeting someone? Maybe,” Mr. Kirchner said. “But I was much less inclined to be open to that happening this time around than I was the first time.”
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Leading up to the show, the couple said producers were telling each of them individually that they had the perfect match for them.
“I was like, ‘You said this before,’” Mr. Kirchner said. “‘I’m not letting you guys build this person up onto a pedestal.’” He was afraid of getting hurt again.
The producers were right, however, because when Ms. Tookes joined the show two weeks into filming, “everything changed,” Mr. Kirchner said.
When they first met in June 2022, Mr. Kirchner said he didn’t put his best foot forward. The result was a “surface-level” conversation, Ms. Tookes said. They talked about U.S. cities named after European ones, like Paris, Texas, and Athens, Ga.
Ms. Tookes, a new contestant on the show, received a “date card” and had to choose one person to take out on a date. (Unlike “The Bachelor,” “Bachelor in Paradise” revolves around multiple single men and women seeking relations with one another.) As she weighed her options, Mr. Kirchner wasn’t at the top of her list, but the production team encouraged her to pick him, she said.
Their first date was on a helicopter. A cameraman sat so close to them in the confined space that he was touching their knees. Mr. Kircher, who is afraid of heights, said that Ms. Tookes’s “angelic, calming voice” brought him a sense of reassurance. During the conversation, he said they were “finally, really seeing each other for the first time.”
They had a “metaphysical conversation,” she said, and they even noticed that the cameraman had a smile on his face.
For the next couple of weeks, the two were inseparable. They brought the inner child out of each other and wrote haikus together.
“It was the first time where I felt 100 percent seen by someone and loved by someone,” Ms. Tookes said.
Despite how great things were going, Mr. Kirchner started getting cold feet toward the end of filming. Ms. Tookes caught on. She told him that even though she wanted to be with him, she would be OK regardless of what happened.
“I’m like, ‘She’s right. She’ll be totally fine without me,’” Mr. Kirchner said. That made him realize: “Well, I don’t want to be without you.”
“I felt like for the first time I was able to communicate my love for someone, but not in a way that diminished the size of myself,” Ms. Tookes said. “I was taking up space.” She felt empowered, and she proposed to him on-camera the following day by saying, “Will you go to the disco with me for the rest of our lives?”
Crying, Mr. Kirchner got down on one knee and proposed as well. He said he knew that getting engaged 13 days after meeting each other was outlandish — but he surrendered to the moment.
And although the two were aware of the sometimes highly contrived components of the show, which is par for the course in reality television, the relationship that emerged turned out to be very real.
When they left the fantasy land that is “Bachelor” production, the foundation of the relationship they had built on the show stayed intact (which doesn’t always happen for other couples from the franchise).
For months, the two continued their relationship long distance. Mr. Kirchner lived in Drumheller, a town in Alberta best known for its collection of dinosaur fossils, and she lived in Brooklyn.
Ms. Tookes had given him a stuffed animal named Milkweed. Each day, after working long hours in construction, Mr. Kirchner took the blue velvet monster to a different dinosaur statue around town, sometimes placing it on the statue’s shoulders or head, snapping a picture and sending it to Ms. Tookes. It made her smile every time.
On Feb. 1, 2023, the couple moved into an apartment in Toronto. The following year, they moved to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Now, Mr. Kirchner works as an actor, model and bartender. Ms. Tookes freelances in human resources and also models.
On Sept. 21, the couple was married at the Brighthouse Farm in Prince Edward, Ontario, in front of 120 guests. Peter Osadetz, a close friend of the couple and a lawyer who can legally notarize documents, officiated.
Mr. Kirchner wore a Ralph Lauren tuxedo, and Ms. Tookes wore a gown by Justin Alexander, a designer who she said made her feel comfortable during the dress shopping experience. (In January, an employee at a bridal boutique in Ontario had told her she would need to pay $200 extra for the “nude” bra cups of the wedding gown she wanted to match her skin color, although beige cups were free.)
After the outdoor ceremony and a cocktail hour inside the barn, Ms. Tookes’s father, Darryl Tookes, a musician, performed “Being Alive” by Stephen Sondheim and an original song titled “New England Morning.”
They grooved into the reception under the tent to “Billie (Loving Arms)” by Fred Again. They also played Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” — twice — to commemorate getting married on the 21st of September.
On This Day
When Sept. 21, 2024
Where The Brighthouse Farm, Ontario, Canada
Sans Flowers To avoid waste and reduce their carbon footprint, the couple rented about 30 plants. They also purchased décor, including a disco ball and lamps, that they kept for their apartment or gave to friends. They set up hay bales in the venue that Mr. Kirchner’s brother, Joshua Kircher, saved for his farm, and they used items they already owned, like cowhide chairs that they had brought to Ontario from New York.
Just Roses As guests arrived at the ceremony, Ms. Tookes’s two brothers and Mr. Kirchner’s two grandmothers handed everyone a rose as a nod to the couple’s time on “The Bachelor” franchise.
Farm to Table Brunch The day after the ceremony, the couple hosted a brunch in a cottage that belongs to Joshua Kirchner. The chickens in the coop on his farm laid about 100 eggs that he and their mother, Donna Kirchner, cooked for the meal.
The post 13 Days After Meeting, She Proposed on TV and He Followed Suit appeared first on New York Times.
