'A Bachelor No More' Recap

Counting On "A Bachelor No More" Parts 1 and 2

• A few days ahead of the wedding, the couple is in Arkansas making their unity candle, as well as candles for their moms. Jennifer is their chaperone. When asked what scent they should choose for Michelle, she says: “Mama likes laundry smell. She puts it in her car.” They end up doing lavender.
• “I was not looking for a husband, so meeting John, it really happened overnight, but it really was the right thing, so there was a lot of peace in it,” says Abbie. John claims that he started planning the engagement at the start of the courtship. John and Abbie are getting married six months after they met, at the same church where they met.
• Wedding coordinators Jana Duggar and Duggar friend Laura DeMaise, along with the Duggar brothers, pack up supplies and head to Oklahoma. “We’re taking extra things that we probably won’t need, but just in case,” says Jana. “Might as well be packing up and moving somewhere for like a year.”
• Would any of the Duggars consider eloping?
• Jana: “…At some point in time…I think every single couple has said, ‘Let’s just elope.’”
• Jason: “I might consider eloping. She would say no way, whoever she is. I think it’s probably just not a Duggar thing to get eloped because we want all the friends to be there.”
• Jedidiah: “Almost all girls want like a ceremony, and so even if you elope, you’re still going to have a ceremony later on, I think, and so you might as well get it over with...well not get it over with.”
• The siblings arrive at the airplane hanger to start decorating for the reception. They create a massive, flowy decoration for the ceiling, made of tablecloths. They say they are using redneck engineering. “Redneck engineering is using whatever you have to fix whatever you might need to fix, y’all,” explains Austin.
• When Jeremiah considers putting a ladder on a forklift, Jana nixes that idea. The group leaves the hanger at1am, and they start decorating the church later that day. Working with one’s siblings isn’t always the easiest thing. “We all had our own opinion…” says Jedidiah.
• Meanwhile, Josiah and Lauren are at their house practicing the song they will be singing at the wedding. “There’s not a day that I don’t think about the little one or wake up crying or something, or…thinking of memories we could have had,” says Lauren. She and Josiah say they are trying to praise the Lord for how good he is, even though they are hurting.
• “I’ve never seen someone who has served their wife so much,” says Lauren. "I wish our baby could have seen how wonderful a daddy he.” After her miscarriage, Lauren was so weak that she couldn't walk, so Josiah carried her around.
• The day before the wedding, the rest of the family is on their way to Oklahoma. “Whenever I am back at my family’s house, I feel like I more or less morph back into that role as older sister,” says Jessa, as she makes sure the little girls have their dress shoes.
• The bride and groom arrive, and the rehearsal goes off without a hitch. The man officiating the wedding is Bob Gray II, the pastor at the church that John attends whenever he is in Texas. “We are very ready to have our first kiss,” admits John. “It is [hard to wait], but yet it’s not. We’ve consciously made that decision.”
•  After the rehearsal, there is still a lot to do at the hanger. The “light guys” end up taking longer to set up the lights than expected. Jana is stressed out, but she keeps her cool. Friends of the Duggars come together to lend a hand.
• The wedding day finally arrives! Abbie’s nursing school friend does her makeup, and her sister Maggie does her hair. Her maid of honor is her older sister Hannah. John’s best man is Joseph. While the wedding party gets ready, the other siblings are at the hanger finishing up.
• While taking pictures with his groomsmen, John is told by the photographer to look like Zoolander and Blue Steel. The siblings say they don’t know what Zoolander is, but Jeremy does. 
• For additional wedding details, check out our recap of the wedding preview. 
• “She took my breath away,” says John of the moment he saw Abbie walking down the aisle. “[John] was just standing up on the stage grinning from ear to ear,” says Abbie.
• After the pastor speaks, Abbie’s dad officiates the vows, which the bride and groom wrote. We posted them last year. Click here to read them.
• “I’m happy that she gave me the nickname of Sugar Muffin,” says John. Abbie refers to him as Sugar Muffin in their vows. The other siblings think it's a little strange. “I wouldn’t want to be called Sugar Muffin,” admits Lauren. “[Josiah] calls me Sugar Baby.
• What’s the deal with the first kiss? John kisses a few other body parts, including Abbie’s hand, forehead, and cheek, before making it to her lips. “I planned the first kiss,” says John. “I wanted to take my time and take it slow.” He had given Abbie a heads-up on what he wanted to do, and she though it was tender. What do the siblings think?
• Joseph: “That was a different method...”
• Kendra: “It was their first kiss, it was great, but it was a little bit awkward to watch.”
• Lauren: “I was like, ‘John, just, just please kiss her on the lips, just please.”
• Jason: “By the third, forth one, I was like, ‘Aright, go get a hotel room.’”
• Jinger: “No I will never forget it.”
• Some of the couples, including Jim Bob and Michelle, jokingly reenact the first kiss. 
• At the reception, John and Abbie cut their cake and feed it to each other. “We were really thankful for everybody who came,” says Abbie. “We felt really loved.”
• After a little while, the bride and groom jump into their getaway plane, but not before they both hug Jana and thank her for everything. After lifting Abbie into the plane, John does a safety check of the outside before they take off. They do a fly-over, and then they’re gone.
• While Jinger and Jeremy are still in town, Jessa and Ben announce their pregnancy and June 6^th due date. Later, they share it with the rest of the family. Everyone is ecstatic, as they always are when a Duggar pregnancy is announced.
• "I think we would be thrilled to have baby number two," says Kendra, who admits she has a baby itch. She and Joe are planning on building a house. 
• Josiah and Lauren say they are looking forward to expanding their family, Lord willing.
• "Hopefully I'll either be pregnant or having a baby within the next year," says Joy.