Waiting for the right time. Caila Quinn and her fiancé, Nick Burrello, decided to officially cancel their wedding during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Bachelor alum, 29, penned a thoughtful blog post on Monday, October 19, detailing her “mixed emotions” as she and the businessman, 27, carefully weighed all of their options. The pair, who went public with their relationship in October 2017, originally hoped to tie the knot in Italy in May 2021. They also planned a second celebration to “accommodate” their family members who weren’t able to travel.
“After we were happy with our decision to have two ceremonies and tried to make our international dreams come true, on March 11th, 2020 COVID hit and had other plans,” Quinn wrote. “We held onto hope as long as we could, but with travel to Europe still prohibited 6 months out – we had to make the tough decision to cancel. After weeks of sleepless nights and going back & forth we finally know this is the right thing to do. And we need to do the right thing.”
The engaged couple wanted to be “optimistic people” when the pandemic set in, giving themselves a “deadline of January 2021” to figure out whether they would take their Italy wedding day off their calendar. Though they hoped that circumstances would be different then, Quinn’s mind began to change when a friend told her, “The world in January will look the same as it does today.”
As she continued to consider which path to follow, the Ohio native and her fiancé “grew stronger together” and stayed “united as a team.” The pair had “invested thousands of dollars” into their two ceremonies, but weren’t sure if it was worth the risk “if international travel to Europe is still banned” next spring. Ultimately, Quinn’s parents helped her make the impossible choice.
“I asked my father, ‘Dad – I need to know what is the right thing to do?’” the former reality star wrote. “He is always definitive which I appreciate. ‘Caila, the right thing to do is to cancel,’ said my dad. … And just like that, I felt like I could breathe again. I wanted to do the ‘right thing’ and for the longest time couldn’t see between the clouds what that was.”
Finally, Quinn and Burrello “came to the same conclusion,” and despite feeling like they were “completely torn in two,” agreed canceling was the safest option. “We took the time we needed to process the big change privately,” she concluded. “Appreciate you being kind and sensitive to our feelings as we close this door before opening the next one and starting to plan all over again.”
Us Weekly exclusively confirmed in January that Burrello popped the question in Sarasota, Florida, on the way to visit Quinn’s grandparents. In 2016, Quinn appeared on Ben Higgins‘ season of The Bachelor. She took a second shot at finding love that summer on season 3 of Bachelor in Paradise and landed in a love triangle with Jared Haibon and Ashley Iaconetti, who got married in August 2019.
“I feel really lucky because I feel like I wasn’t meant to go on the show to find love there,” Quinn told Us after getting engaged. “I was meant to go on the show to find Nick. If I wasn’t on the show, I wouldn’t ever have met him because I would never have been a blogger and that’s who introduced us and set us up on our first date. So, I think everything happens for a reason and I thank God every day.”
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