It’s official: The Bachelorette‘s Charity Lawson and Dotun Olubeko found love in a hopeless place (Bachelor Mansion) and are officially engaged to be married! What’s more, the couple is ready to move in together ASAP and is planning not one, but two weddings. Oh, and one of them might be filmed by ABC! Basically, it’s all happening, and we couldn’t be happier.
And since we fully expect these two to break the Bachelor Nation curse and go the distance, here’s a timeline of how their relationship started (including all the clues they were secretly together) in reverse chronological order, so the newest updates are at the tippy top.
August 24, 2023
Charity reveals she’ll be moving to NYC to live with Dotun! As she put it to Entertainment Tonight, “I’m currently in Charlotte, he’s in Brooklyn… We have obviously talked throughout this whole process, being in hiding, what’s going to be the best-case scenario for us. We are looking to move in together soon. We don’t have a set date right now, but it’s in the works… I will be coming to him in New York.”
Dotun adds that they’ll ideally live in Brooklyn, but are “also open to moving to Manhattan. It’s pretty open-ended. We’re just going to see where the wind blows.”
August 22, 2023
Charity posts her engagement pics on Instagram and writes “Within all my senses, I knew. How grateful am I to discover a love that cannot be replicated.”
I’m not crying, it’s fine.
August 21, 2023
Charity and Dotun make their debut as a couple on After the Final Rose and simply could not be more adorable.
The couple also tells People about their wedding plans, saying they hope to get married in either 2025 or 2026. “We’re not really trying to have a super incredibly 17-year length engagement,” Charity explained. “We obviously came here to find love, and we have successfully done that. So [we’re] super happy to get our lives started.”
Charity and Dotun also confirmed they’re planning two weddings—one Nigerian and one American. “I definitely am open to having two weddings,” Charity explained. “We’ll see what that looks like. But me and Dotun talk a lot about the Nigerian wedding and if ABC will film that one, so we’ll see!”
For now, Dotun says he and Charity are going to move in together “as soon as possible.” After all, “We love to be around each other—it’s hard to be apart—so we want to make that happen ASAP. We can’t wait.”
July 27, 2023
Reality Steve reveals Dotun won Charity’s season, which, yep, adds up!
He adds that “Charity and Dotun have been happy and engaged since the end of April when filming completed. We’ll see it play out on the finale August 21.”
July 7, 2023
Fans are convinced Dotun is Charity’s winner after he posts this photo after Charity apparently posted from the same spot? Confusing, but, I mean…clearly this fan theory ended up being accurate.
May 7, 2023
Reddit notices Charity is wearing the bracelets Dotun’s mom gave her, which sets off the first ~Dotun won her season~ alarm bells.
April 17, 2023
Charity and Dotun spend time together during his Hometown Date on April 17. She immediately connects with his family—and his parents fly in from Nigeria just to meet her!
After Hometowns, Dotun, Xavier, and Joey fly to Fiji where Dotun and Charity have several magical moments including a beachy one-on-one. We also know Dotun ended up proposing during this trip!
April 8, 2023
Charity and Dotun go on their marathon-themed one-on-one (and Dotun tells Charity that he’s falling in love):
Wild to think this was filmed on April 8 and they already had such a strong connection after just a few weeks of knowing each other!
April 2, 2023
According to Reality Steve, Dotun went on a one-on-one date filmed sometime around April 2.
And now we know this was the vibe!
~March 20, 2023
Charity starts filming her season at Bachelor Mansion, and—duh—meets Dotun for the first time. Here’s a look at her during the first days of filming!
And, of course, who can forget Dotun getting a rose on night one? A sign of things to come, obviously!