Jessa Duggar and Ben Seewald got married several months ago, but they’re just now sharing their big day with fans of the Duggar family’s reality show, 19 Kids And Counting.
Duggar said she and Ben knew from the beginning that they wanted their vows to be special and personalized, so they wrote their own. Of course, with both husband and bride coming from large families, the audience was pretty big–nearly 1,000 people–so Jessa said she was more than a little nervous while standing on the altar.
“I was kind of afraid that I might be nervous reading the vows and get all my words jumbled up,” Jessa said.
Although the newlyweds allowed the show to document their relationship, they decided to keep their first kiss private and left the altar to share it behind closed doors. Jessa didn’t tell her parents about it beforehand, but dad Jim Bob said he thought it showed just how special their relationship was.
“I didn’t know until a couple of days before. They said we really wanted it to be an intimate kiss and we don’t really want to do it in front of everybody. That really highlighted how important it was that they waited.”
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar spent plenty of time with Jessa and Ben before they exchanged vows, giving them advice on how to communicate and keep the romance alive.
“Both of you’ll like the physical relationship, but [for] the guy [it] will be kind of like the main focus. But for a woman, communicating is the most important thing, and so taking time each day to communicate, that will mean the world to her,” Jim Bob said.
Jessa has had to share the spotlight with sister Jill, who gave birth to her first child the day after Easter. Jill and husband Derick shared photos of Israel right away on social media, giving their 19 Kids And Counting fans a first look while they were still in the hospital.
