Bachelor in Paradise couple Dean Unglert and Caelynn Miller-Keyes are reportedly engaged after dating for three years.
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Dean mentioned how he planned to pop the question to Caelynn very soon on the Sunday, October 23 episode of his "Help! I Suck at Dating" podcast, which he co-hosts with The Bachelorette alum Jared Haibon.
"It'll happen by the time this podcast airs," Dean teased.
Dean said the podcast episode definitely wouldn't air before his proposal because he and Caelynn were going to be without cell phone reception for the next week.
But Dean revealed he accidentally lost the 4.5-carat emerald-cut diamond he had purchased for his girlfriend.
"It was a loose stone in a napkin," Dean confessed with a laugh, adding how it didn't even have a box. "It looked like a piece of trash."
Dean explained how he had originally given Caelynn the diamond to create her dream ring with a jeweler in New York, but then he decided he wanted it to be somewhat of a surprise and so he asked for the diamond back and had her put it in the junk drawer.
"It might be in the junk drawer in the kitchen. It was there for a few months, because it was just the stone -- I hadn't gotten it mounted yet. And I went to go get it... to bring it to the jeweler to get mounted, and it wasn't in there," Dean explained.
"And I asked Caelynn, I said, 'Hey, the stone is missing... It just up and vanished."
Dean recalled, "I called Caelynn over and said, 'Where is it? It's gone?' And she said, 'Well, I didn't move it. I would never move it because I know it's your thing and I wouldn't just move it without saying something.'"
Dean said he's done a lot of sitting and meditating, trying to remember his time in the junk drawer.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW"But it just doesn't exist in my memory," Dean admitted. "It didn't work. And so I went into a camera that's always recording in our kitchen. I went back three weeks... to see if I was ever fiddling around in the junk drawer -- nothing."
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Dean concluded, "I just have no idea where it is. I imagine it's in the house somewhere... We're going to do a deep clean one day, and, 'Oh, there it is! Found it!' It sucks, but it is what it is, and we just have to make do with what we have."
Dean said the diamond could have fallen through into the cabinet below, or maybe it's in the garage. He also said maybe he had the diamond in his jeans and Caelynn moved them around, cleaning, "and now it's gone."
Dean warned his listeners, "But yeah, moral of the story is don't put your engagement rings in the junk drawer. So I did have to go out and buy a placeholder ring for now, but it's not quite as nice as the first one was."
Dean revealed in June of potentially proposing marriage to Caelynn on his podcast, "I made a deal with [Caelynn]. I was like, 'I'll buy you a ring if you buy me a truck.'"
Dean admitted at the time how he even threw a "hissy fit" upon seeing the 4.5 karat ring Caelynn was hoping to have on her finger one day.
"I was like, 'I don't even want to be in here right now. I don't really care what I wear on my finger, blah, blah, blah'... We had a bit of a scuffle," Dean said.
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But Dean has clearly come around to the idea since then.
And in August, Caelynn took to her Instagram Stories and posted a photo of a Toyota vehicle's steering wheel. She appeared to be driving a new car home.
"I spent the afternoon at Toyota picking up something special for Dean," Caelynn wrote on the image. "If you listen to 'Help I Suck at Dating,' you know what this is."
That same month, Dean told Jared on his podcast how he knew where he was going to propose marriage and how he was going to do it.
Dean explained how he and Caelynn both plan on proposing marriage to each other, but he noted, "My money's on me doing it first."
And when imagining what his wedding is going to be like, Dean teased, "We're gonna elope, I hope. That's my dream."
Back in April, Caelynn recalled her reaction to Dean's request that she propose marriage to him.
"When Dean first said that, I thought, 'Okay, [it's] another thing Dean is saying to break the mold.' Sometimes he says things just for a reaction, and he'll admit that. I thought that's kind of what he was doing," Caelynn explained in a Q&A on YouTube.
"But the more I thought about it, the more I loved it, because traditionally, he would propose to me. That's something I've dreamt of for so long, and that's something that he doesn't get -- a day that's catered to him and this special moment where he's really thought of. That's when I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I love this.'"
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Caelynn pointed out how she and Dean have "a partnership" and so they both deserve to have a proposal day.
"I love the idea of planning this extravagant -- well, not extravagant, because he doesn't like to be the center of attention -- but just this thing that's all about him. So after I really thought about it, I am really, really into it," Caelynn noted.
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Dean, who initially rejected the idea of marriage entirely, and his girlfriend of three years have been wearing wedding bands since 2020 to show they are committed to each other.
"I don't need [the] title of husband to show the world that I'm committed to one person, and so the fact that I'm wearing the ring is showing just that... I'm committed to Caelynn and only Caelynn. And that's why I've been wearing it for the past six or so months," Dean said on The Bachelor: The Greatest Season -- Ever! special that aired in June 2020.
"It's our way of telling the world or the people that we're around that we're committed to each other. I think it's one of those comforting things where you can wake up in the morning and see your partner wearing that ring and be like, 'Okay, yes, they know that I'm committed to them and vice versa.'"
Dean and Caelynn are apparently proud to still be together, considering most Bachelor Nation fans probably didn't think they'd make it.
"It's funny, I don't think a single person thought we were going to last and even we were like, 'No, I don't know what's going to happen here.' So, we definitely defied the odds," Caelynn gushed to Us ahead of the couple's two-year anniversary in June 2021.
"I think that's just our unique relationship and we really try not to listen to it. When you go on the show, so many people are going to have so many opinions about your relationship -- good and bad. I think we just never really listened to those negative people, and we just lived our lives."
Caelynn admitted, however, it "really frustrates" her when fans assume Dean isn't a good boyfriend.
"He is hilarious and he's very sarcastic and he's also the most romantic person I think I've ever met. He's so thoughtful," Caelynn boasted.
"So I think that's a big misconception -- that I'm, like, more invested in the relationship or he, like, doesn't treat me right. I'm like, 'No, he treats me exceptionally well and he's always going out of his way to just surprise me and do romantic things.'"
Caelynn also told HollywoodLife around that same time how she could see Dean and herself getting engaged and having a secret wedding, without anyone knowing.
"We've talked about keeping things super private and intimate," shared the former beauty pageant queen. "Also, maybe we don't need to get married. I don't know. Our relationship works so well, we go back and forth."
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Dean, however, wasn't interested at the time.
Once Dean and Caelynn took their relationship from Paradise and into the real world, they began traveling together and enjoying "the van life."
But the couple decided to put down roots and live a more traditional life in 2021 by becoming homeowners in Summerlin, Las Vegas. They moved into their house in April 2021.
Dean previously summed up his relationship with Caelynn as "opposites attract," saying they both bring out positive traits in each other and are "both fortunate" it just works.
Caelynn and Dean's relationship seemed to move in a serious direction in late 2019 after the former beauty pageant queen stayed by Dean's side when he was hospitalized in the Swiss Alps following a serious skiing accident.
Caelynn apparently traveled to Switzerland to pick Dean up from the hospital and take care of him as he recovered from a dislocated hip, fractured femur, and surgery that required four screws to be put inside his body.
Prior to meeting on Paradise, Caelynn competed for Colton Underwood's heart on The Bachelor's 23rd season, and Dean had been on multiple The Bachelor spinoffs after initially appearing on Rachel Lindsay's season of The Bachelorette.
Dean previously gushed to Us his relationship with Caelynn is "monumentally different" from other women he's dated in the past. Dean was previously linked to Kristina Schulman, Danielle Lombard and Lesley Murphy from The Bachelor world alone.
"She's very intelligent and compassionate. I am able to be myself around her and she's able to be herself and that's how we create synergy and build around each other," Dean explained of his love.
"For the first time in my Bachelor franchise relationship history, I feel like I'm able to say what I want, do what I want, and allow my partner to build with me while I'm doing that."
Dean, however, believed in late 2019 that marriage was "never going to happen" for them.
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"We joke around about it. Just try to keep expectations to a minimum, you know? Like I said on the show, underpromise, overdeliver."
It appears Dean has been overdelivering ever since!
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
