Bachelor Nation couples may come and go, but Serena Pitt has always been confident that she and Joe Amabile are going to make it down the aisle — and now she’s ready to officially start wedding planning.
“I think we did always know we were gonna get here. I think the most crucial time is right after the show — at least for us. Going into it, we were like, ‘This is kind of the first test,’” the 24-year-old reality star exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her partnership with Pantene and the brand’s Pro-Vitamin formula shampoo and deep conditioning treatment. “We know we love each other; we see a future together. But right after the show, spending that time in the outside world, like, is there that compatibility? Could we live together and not wanna kill each other? After that initial transition went so smoothly, there was really nothing but confidence in the future of our relationship and we always knew we were gonna end up getting married.”
Pitt and Amabile, 36, got engaged during the season 7 finale of Bachelor in Paradise, which aired in October 2021.
“I don’t think it ever really bothered us — people asking about [our relationship] — maybe because we did have that confidence,” she continued. “It never felt like [there was] pressure or like it was forcing us to rush anything. We just feel confident. People are gonna ask and that’s OK, but then we just have to do what’s best for our relationship.”
While Pitt and Amabile faced their own challenges on the ABC show, the season 8 cast will experience a new twist a la Love Island’s Casa Amor, separating the couples and bringing in new contestants to test the relationships.
“As a viewer, I think it’s gonna be really fun and exciting to watch because it’s something different that we haven’t seen before — it’s gonna bring new challenges, new drama, maybe new love stories. As a past contestant, I would’ve hated that concept,” Pitt told Us. “I would’ve been so frustrated because I’m assuming that they’re gonna wait a little bit into the season to separate them. And for me, I was pretty set on Joe early on, he was set on me and my only goal was to further our relationship and get to know each other and get to a place where we could leave together. I don’t know how long they’re separated for, I don’t really know much about it, but all I know is I would’ve been pissed off. I would’ve been like, ‘My whole point here is to hang out with Joe and he’s in another villa in some part of Puerto Vallarta.’”
Following the show, the twosome opted to take time to celebrate their engagement, hosting a party for their family and friends in July.
“We definitely had said after we got engaged [that] we were interested in doing an engagement party. It wasn’t necessarily something that we were like, ‘We have to do this,’ because, obviously, we were engaged for a year before we celebrated, but I know that we wanted to get our family and friends together and that was kind of the best way to go about it,” Pitt said. “Our parents actually met at the engagement party. … It was really more about the coming together of our two worlds. It was a good reason to bring everyone together.”
Earlier this year, the Canada native and the former Chicago resident moved in together in New York City after debating where to live.
“It was really easy,” Pitt told Us of moving in with Amabile. “I feel like we kind of already lived together even though we didn’t because I did [have] things at his place in Chicago and we just spend a lot of our time there together, but it [wasn’t] fully living together. I mean the two closets definitely was an adjustment and New York apartments are a little smaller than what the Chicago apartment was, but we’ve made it work and we love living together. We’re lucky with how smooth it was. I think we’re very prepared for it.”
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