“Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Dolores Catania finally got engaged to Paul “Paulie” Connell at the Apple Store… with a 15-carat diamond ring.
The Irish businessman proposed to Catania on Monday, their fourth anniversary together, at the same place they first met five years ago.
“We could have proposed on a yacht in Greece. We could have rented a saloon and invited 400 people and asked them to marry us with fireworks in the background. But that’s not who we are,” Connell, 51, told People on Wednesday.
“We’re a humble couple, so we didn’t want anything pretentious or staged. We wanted something grounded, natural and organic. We also wanted an element of surprise. Trust me, I had an element of surprise.”
Catania, 54, admitted: “I had no clue.”
“I actually thought I had to call an ambulance for him! He was sweating so bad, his T-shirt was soaking wet and his face was bright red. And you know how weird things people say when they have a stroke? He started saying these sweet, beautiful things to me out of nowhere, and I was like, ‘Paul, are you okay?'” she elaborated. Then I realized he was proposing. ”
Before taking a knee, Connell spoke with employees about how he and Catania first met there. They struck up a conversation for the first time after discovering that their phones “broke down at the same time and the same thing.”
Afterwards, one of the staff members who had been involved in the planning escorted the two to their first meeting point, and Catania blurted out, “This is the table we were standing at! Wouldn’t it be weird if we got engaged here?”
And they did.
“I immediately said yes,” said the “ecstatic” Ms. Bravolebrity, who has two adult children with her first husband, Frank Catania.
“Everything was so sincere and so thoughtful. And when I got home, there were over 1,000 roses waiting for me. So he really came up with the park.”
He certainly did. Connell gifted Dolores with an eye-catching ring that consisted of an 11-carat center stone surrounded by an additional four carats and a band lined with princess-cut diamonds.
Connell had the bauble in her hands for more than a year and a half, but the proposal kept getting delayed. First, Frank got engaged to his current wife, Brittany Matesic, and then his ex-girlfriend’s son, Frankie Catania, popped the question to his current fiancée, Nicole Pellicho.
“I was saying to myself, ‘Maybe no one wants me to marry Dolores?!'” Connell joked.
As for the wedding itself, the two are “in no hurry.”
“The way we set up our lives, we can do things the way we want, whenever we want. And I don’t do things based on what people think I should do. I’ve never done that. Ask any of my friends!” Dolores explained.
