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Credit score: Darla Khazei/INSTARimages
Dolores Catania and Paul “Paulie” Connell are engaged!
After almost 5 years of courting, Paulie, 51, proposed to the 54-year-old Actual Housewives of New Jersey solid member with an 11-carat engagement ring on Monday on the place they first met — an Apple retailer in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.
“I’m ecstatic!” Dolores instructed PEOPLE on November 12. “You recognize once you really feel that happiness down in your intestine? That’s the place this pleasure stems from for me. I really feel so blessed, I nearly really feel responsible! Like I don’t should be liked this fashion.”
Paulie disagreed.
“I hold telling Dolores, she deserves that and a lot extra,” he said. “She’s an unimaginable girl. And after I was proposing to her, I used to be in a position to articulate to her every little thing I see that she is, and every little thing I see that she does, and the impression she has on everyone round her. She’s one in 1,000,000.”
Whereas RHONJ followers have been ready for an engagement for years, Dolores mentioned Paulie’s choice to attend to get down on one knee was excellent.
“I’ve by no means been so positive of one thing ever,” she mentioned. “You recognize, persistence is an enormous factor for us. After we first met, Paul wasn’t used to being within the public eye; he wasn’t used to the stress the viewers can placed on relationships. There have been issues in his life that he wanted to type by, and that took time. However even when issues got here up on the present, I by no means pushed Paul, as a result of I needed him to do the correct factor on his personal. And our bond is stronger now due to that. As a pair, we have been in a position to naturally progress. So this engagement means extra to us than it will if it was simply one thing we have been doing only for the sake of doing it.”
In keeping with Paulie, proposing to Dolores was the “finest choice” he’d ever made.
“[I] really feel fortunate to have Dolores in my life. She’s made me a greater model of myself,” he said.
As for his choice to suggest at Apple, Paulie mentioned he “didn’t need something over-the-top and staged.”
“We’re a humble couple. I needed it to really feel grounded and pure and natural. Plus, I needed the factor of shock. And consider me, I had the factor of shock,” he declared.
As Dolores admitted, she was utterly clueless and thought she was headed to an interview a couple of new menopause medicine.
“I had hair and make-up right here after which midway by, I used to be instructed the assembly was cancelled. So Paul mentioned, ‘Oh nice, we’ve time to go get your new iPhone now,’” she recalled, sharing that Paulie had needed her to get to the shop earlier than BravoCon this weekend.
“I instructed her, ‘There’s just one iPhone Professional Max within the space proper now, and so they’re holding it for you so we’ve to return to that f*cking retailer!’” Paulie defined. “And she or he was like, ‘Ahh, f*ck, fantastic!’”
Though she was aggravated at first, Dolores mentioned the thought was “tremendous candy.” In any case, as she mirrored, “Each our telephones have been broke with the identical issues on the similar time. And that’s how we began speaking to start with.”
After joking about how humorous it will be if he and Dolores bought engaged on the desk the place they have been standing after they met, Paul mentioned he started to consider his mom earlier than asking for Dolores’ hand in marriage.
“I’m like, ‘What are you doing? Don’t begin getting unhappy, you’re meant to be joyful, this can be a joyful second!’” he mentioned.
As soon as Paulie pulled out the ring, which options an 11-carat stone surrounded by further diamonds in silver from John Anthony Jewelers, Dolores “instantly” mentioned, “sure.”
“The entire thing was so honest and so considerate. After which after I got here residence, there was over 1,000 roses [by Premiere Events by Reema] ready for me. I imply, he actually hit it out of the park,” she famous.
Wanting again at a 2023 episode of RHONJ wherein he claimed to “have the ring,” Paulie admitted that the one he proposed with was not the identical.
“I had purchased a stone early on into courting Dolores, considering, ‘If we get engaged, I’ll use this.’ However then through the years of attending to know Dolores higher, she began speaking to me about what she appreciated and I spotted, it was reverse of what I bought. So I went again to the drafting board,” he defined.
Whereas Paulie bought Dolores’ engagement ring over a 12 months and a half in the past, he delayed giving it to her after her ex-husband, Frank Catania, bought engaged to Brittany Mattessich and her son, Frankie Catania, Jr., proposed to his girlfriend, Nicole Perricho.
“I used to be like, ‘Get the f*ck out of right here!’” he shared. “I stored saying to myself, ‘Perhaps nobody desires me to marry Dolores!?!”
Fortunately, after Frank and Frankie had their second, Paulie bought his, proposing to his longtime love on November 10, which was the anniversary of the day they moved in collectively 4 years in the past.
“I’m telling you, there’s not a factor this man didn’t consider,” Dolores exclaimed, including that they celebrated their engagement with a meal at Rocco’s steakhouse, the place they went on their first date.
As for the marriage, Dolores and Paulie don’t have any plans fairly but.
“I’d like to get married the day we bought engaged, as a result of November has all the time been a sentimental month for me, however we’re each so excited proper now that we actually wish to take pleasure in this second and soak up this all in,” Paul revealed. “Plus we’ve Frankie’s wedding ceremony developing, we’re speaking about shifting into a brand new home, and naturally, Dolores and I’ll need the marriage to be an ideal expertise. So we’ll get there when the time is true.”
‘There’s no rush,” Dolores added. “The way in which we’ve set our life up, we will do issues nonetheless and at any time when we wish to do them. and I don’t do issues based mostly on what folks suppose I ought to do. I’ve by no means accomplished that. Simply ask my buddies!”
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