Chip and Joanna Gaines of the popular HGTV show “Fixer Upper” sat down for a lengthy interview recently as they celebrate two decades of marriage.
But during the interview, Joanna shocked her affable husband when she disclosed for the first time she knew she would marry him on their first date.
That was in spite of the fact she told People Magazine he was not her type.
The two scheduled a date after Chip saw his then-love interest in a TV commercial for her father’s Waco, Texas, auto shop in 2001.
Chip found himself making trips to the shop for work on his car, and he got the opportunity to ask Joanna on a date.
She agreed, and the two went out together.
“I was always attracted to quiet guys, to the guy that you didn’t know what he was thinking,” she told People with her husband alongside her. “When Chip and I went on our first date, he didn’t stop talking! In my mind I was like, ‘Okay, this isn’t going to work. Because he is not quiet, he’s not mysterious. He’s very just out there.’”
In spite of her reservations, Joanna said something about him spoke to her deeply.
“Then I heard this voice say, ‘This is who you’re going to marry,’” she said.
Joanna added, “Call it God, call it whatever. ‘This is the man you’re going to marry.’”
While Chip was not the silent type, Joanna said she did appreciate he was a listener — in addition to being a big talker.
“There’s a big difference in people who hear and listen,” she said. “Chip would listen.”
Chip cut in and asked his wife to clarify she actually knew on their initial date she would marry him.
“On the first date?” he asked.
Joanna insisted she tried to argue with her inner monologue about whether Chip was marriage material.
“I remember seeing him talking, and then I couldn’t hear him anymore,” she said. “And I’m arguing with my inner self, saying, ‘This is not the person.'”
“Were you really?” Chip responded. “Was it like severe desperation? You were kind of arguing? Sad.”
Both laughed at the comment.
Chip and Joanna scheduled a second date, which was delayed to an injury to Joanna’s back. In the interim, Chip explained he wondered if he would ever see her again.
“What is going on with this girl? I’m done with these games,” he said he told himself. But he was persistent.
A year later, the couple was engaged and the rest is history.
The couple still resides in Waco and they share five children and a successful TV show.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.