ET spoke with 'The Bachelorette' stars Michelle Young and Nayte Olukoya about their emotional journey and what’s next in their future.
It's been three months since Michelle Young and Nayte Olukoya got engaged on The Bachelorette, and the two are still sporting that newly engaged glow.
"I think this is exactly where I am supposed to be," the 28-year-old teacher tells ET's Lauren Zima. "But I was constantly checking my feelings and where Nayte was in those feelings was pretty high at the top, but there were times where I did press him to make sure I was getting an answer that I needed just because he wasn't used to opening up and being vulnerable and that was something that was very new."
"I challenged you on quite a bit," she teasingly says to her fiancé. "And, hey, he delivered!"
Fans got to watch the teacher and Austin-based sales executive seal their fairy-tale ending during Tuesday's season finale, where Nayte and Michelle exchanged I love yous during their Fantasy Suite date before Nayte got down on one knee and popped the question.
"The very first night I met you, I knew we had a connection that I wanted to hold on to. The second night we were together, we talked about running away together," Nayte said during his proposal as they stood together on a beach. "I'm standing in front of you right now and feeling the same. I want to run away with you. I want to run away into forever with the woman I've come to love."
"I know that you've felt unseen at times. And I want to let you know I'm completely prepared, willing and ready to make sure that you are always chosen first, seen, now, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives. I love you, Michelle," he added.
The 27-year-old admits that he's never been in love before his relationship with Michelle but tells ET that a moment of clarity helped his heart and mind sync up.
"There was a moment of extreme clarity for me when my heart and my mind were completely in sync. Everything connected and I was just certain that this is who I want to spend the rest of my life with," he explains. "I could hardly imagine life without her when I would be laying in bed, and like, that's not really ever happened to me right?"
Michelle is no stranger to the concept of spending forever with your first love, she says it runs in the family!
"You know when you know... It comes across differently for everybody but with my brother and his wife, she was his first love. My sister and her husband, he was her first love, so it was not like this foreign thing," she reveals. "[Nayte] fits the mold perfectly!"
Their journey wasn't without its bumps, as Michelle had some concerns that her beau may not be ready to pop the question, and her parents, Ephraim and LaVonne, expressed similar doubts. Ephraim worried that Nayte might be an emotionally closed-off person, while LaVonne wasn't so sure that he was ready to get down on one knee.
"With Nayte, there was a different vibe than what we saw with Brandon," Ephraim shared, explaining that Brandon -- whom Michelle later broke up with -- was more personable when he met the family.
LaVonne directly told Nayte that she doesn't feel like he's ready to be engaged and that he still seems very reserved.
"Nayte was very kind, he said all the right things, but I really wasn't getting that feeling that he was ready to propose to her," LaVonne shared in an interview. "I think one of the things she likes about him is that he's a little more surprising, a little less predictable. And to be honest, I am worried about that."
As they've watched their romance play out onscreen, the couple says they realize how difficult it can be for other people to understand their intense emotions when others aren't as involved in the process as they are.
"The whole thing is just difficult, it's not something most people have to experience," Michelle says. "And we kinda talked about how we were really in love when we left on the day that we got engaged. You learn so much about each other and we had just gotten to know each other even more during that period of time. So by the time you're getting to week 8, 9, 10 of the show when more serious relationships are happening, now you have significantly more serious relationships."
"Like, it's gonna be uncomfortable and we didn't pretend that it was just never uncomfortable. We definitely just said, 'This is a really weird situation, let's talk about your feelings, let's talk about my feelings and here's how we're gonna navigate it,'" Michelle adds. "To say we're gonna go through this whole experience unfazed is not really realistic."
But all worries have been well-assuaged now, especially as the two look toward their future. During the emotional After the Final Rose special, the couple revealed that not only are Michelle's parents "absolutely in love" with Nayte now, but they're "besties" with Nayte's mom, too. And in a super-sweet surprise to the couple, who revealed they're house-hunting in Minnesota, the show sent a surprise gift of a down-payment check for their first home.
Noting that the down payment was an "incredibly generous gift," Michelle tells ET that the couple was always going to make it work, "down payment or not."
And as for their mothers, the teacher says they're really "funny" together. "Just like Nayte said, we want to bring our families together and being able to kind of lean on each other's families as this was all unfolding was incredibly helpful," she adds. "Me getting close to Nayte's sister, him getting close to my siblings and my family has been really special. And now that we can do it together and physically get together -- I don't know, it really makes this all sink in even more, so it's been awesome."
Michelle reveals that their families are getting along so well that their moms are already diving into wedding planning! "The moms are off wedding planning and on their own mother trips without us, they are in their own world, you know? [They're the] real love story," she says.
Nate shares that the couple wants a "summertime wedding" sometime in the "near future." But, despite their mothers going full steam ahead, the two aren't putting a rush on anything. They say they're enjoying the time they get to be fully together.
"Give us an hour and we will cover so much in an hour," Nayte says. "We will be goofy, we will be serious. Like, we sat down on the couch the other night for, like, 40 minutes because we were eating popcorn and we were just curious how it pops -- like what is going on when you put it in the microwave [and it] turns from a hard solid type of object to a fluffy type of delicious little treat? For 45 minutes [we] just went on this crazy search."
When asked what grade she would give her journey with Nayte, Michelle enthusiastically says an "A++." Passed with flying colors!
Michelle's journey for love may have come to an end but there's more to come! The Bachelor franchise will return on Jan. 3 with the premiere of Clayton Echard's season of The Bachelor. ET will keep you up to date all season long, with all of our Bachelor coverage.
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