Chip and Joanna Gaines are known for being one of the most in love couples on television, which is why it came as a huge surprise to fans this week when they learned that they nearly didn’t even go on a second date!

In a new essay called “Slow Yes” written for the upcoming summer issue of Magnolia Journal, Joanna opened up about her romance with her husband, and it did not begin in the way that fans likely expected.

“It wasn’t love at first sight for Chip and me,” Joanna, 42, admitted in the essay, according to a preview obtained by People magazine.

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“For one thing, I was typically attracted to guys who were more on the quiet side,” the mother of five added. She went on to explain that “based” on the couple’s first date, “it was clear that Chip was anything but quiet” and that he “was all over the place.” In fact, Chip seems to have talked her ear off about the companies he planned to start, the houses he wanted to flip, and the risks he planned to take.

“In my mind, I somewhat instinctively checked his penchant for risk and chatty nature as two reasons we probably wouldn’t go on a second date,” Joanna said.

Thankfully, Joanna did decide to give him one more date, and the rest is history. The two got married in 2003, and they have since welcomed five children and started an empire together.

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“All the ideas and dreams he held for himself were anything but ordinary, and he talked about the world around him through the lens of untapped potential,” she said, going on to say that “when Chip did eventually stop talking, if only to take a breath, I found myself wanting to fill the silence with plans and dreams of my own.”

“This near-stranger had drawn out a side of me that I didn’t yet know existed,” Joanna wrote. “My gut told me there was something there worth waiting for. Our lives have beat to this same rhythm ever since.”

We’re so glad that these two lovebirds were able to find one another!

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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