After announcing their plans to tie the knot live on TV next month, Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner and fiancée Theresa Nist have started the planning process.
Nist, 70, told Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt on Saturday’s episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast that she’d extend a wedding invite to “every single one” of the other women from her season, including Turner’s runner-up Leslie Fhima.
“I would invite Leslie,” Nist said. “I don’t know if she would come.”
The securities professional also named Edith Aguirre, Pamela Burns, Peggy Dercole, Ellen Goltzer, Renee Halverson-Wright, Faith Martin, Sandra Mason and Sylvia Robledo as Turner’s other hopefuls who she’d want there on her big day. And Turner, 72, added Anna Zalk to the list.
“I talk to Anna all the time,” Nist said.
Turner called ending his relationship with Fhima, 64, in the finale a “horrible moment,” and Nist referred to the fitness instructor as one of her closest friends in the house.
“I cooked her dinner, she taught me exercise routines,” Nist told Amabile, 37, and Pitt, 26. “We sat and talked a lot. We, all the time, cried together. So this isn’t fun to have that happen to any other human being. I didn’t like that. And along those same lines, I was really good friends with Faith, so I would say the people I was the closest with in the house were Faith and Leslie. How does that happen?”
The newly engaged couple also revealed some additional plans for the wedding and its lead-up, including that Nists plan to have a bachelorette party and Turner plans to have a bachelor party — in Las Vegas!
“My pickleball friends brought it up this week, if they could do some kind of a bachelor party,” Turner said. “And I thought, you know, if we wind it down by 9:00, we can go anywhere you want.”
Nist didn’t want to say where she’ll be celebrating her bachelorette party.
The reality stars did, however, disclose some possible names for signature cocktails at their wedding: Turner into Misses, One Headlight (a reference to their first date), The Final Rose and The Birthday Suit, because Nist stepped out of the limo on the first night, which also happened to be her birthday, in a nude bodysuit.
While speaking recently, Nist said that Turner told her he wants to wear a blue suit on their wedding day.
Nist mentioned that she has an idea of what she wants her wedding dress and veil to look like, as well as thoughts about “the look of the cake.” She picked out colors for flowers and wants a lot of them “because my daughter and I are both gardeners,” Nist added. “I have abundant roses and gardens.”
The pair envisions long tables with a draped ceiling for the reception. “And originally our idea was to have these cypress trees like you see in Italy, but it’s not going to happen at this location,” Nist said. “But it’s just as spectacular, what is going to happen.”
Nist and Turner have also had a lot of wedding prep help from her daughter Jen.
“My daughter, she’s seen a million weddings and she is incredible,” Nist raved. “She’s put together the vision board. She’s asking me, ‘Do you like this? Do you like this?’ And I go, ‘Wow, okay, I don’t even have to do this. This is awesome.’ She’s handling it pretty much.”
As for Turner, he hasn’t minded taking a step back from planning duties.
“I haven’t seen anything that wouldn’t work,” he said. “It’s going to be spectacular.”
The Golden Wedding will air Thursday, Jan. 4 on ABC at 8 p.m. ET.
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