Trista And Ryan

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Trista Sutter (née Rehn) has seen pretty much every nook and cranny of Bachelor Nation. She was the runner-up during the reality dating show's precedent-setting first season, starring Alex Michel as the first Bachelor; she was the franchise's inaugural Bachelorette; and she also swears she's seen every single season of every Bachelor offshoot. And why not? For Sutter, the show proved to be life-changing-not least because she and Ryan, who now live in Vail, Colorado, form one of the only couples from the franchise who have had a long and lasting marriage.
But that doesn't mean she and Ryan see the franchise through rose-colored glasses. Shortly before their love story-from The Bachelor Season 1, to The Bachelorette's first season, to their televised wedding special-becomes available to stream exclusively on the free service Tubi on April 1, the two told V.F. that being on the show could be total hell, thanks to the unrelenting, hawk-like gaze of its producers, and their propensity for string-pulling. As the two reflected on Colton Underwood's recent Bachelor season-and particularly his infamous fence jump-Ryan recalled a moment when he, too, had to give producers the slip.
"Especially as you get toward the end [of the season], your emotions become real," Ryan said. "If you're a person like Colton seems to be, and like I was, you just need a break; you just need some time to think about things . . . You just need to escape." In his case, he said, the breaking point came on the day of his proposal to Trista during The Bachelorette Season 1. A producer had arranged to shoot the requisite getting-ready footage at his hotel-but in a moment of rebellion, Ryan woke up early and left before the team could arrive. In the moment, Ryan recalls, he was thinking, "Enough was enough. I was like, 'This could potentially be one of the biggest days of my life. I'm not gonna sit here and, like, let a bunch of people I don't know document that, and ask me a bunch of stupid questions that I'm tired of answering.'"
"I think that's what happened with Colton," he added. "He's like, 'There goes the girl that I want at the end of the show, and I can either stay on course and let the producers dictate where this is gonna go, and end up with the wrong person, or I can take action, jump this fence, get away, and make this the way I want it.' I think it's really kind of admirable that he bucked the trend."
Any seasoned Bachelor fan has struggled while trying to discern where participants' free will ends and the whims of producers begin. Trista said she was proud of the franchise and its producers this year for loosening the reins a little on Colton, and allowing his love story with the season's winner, Cassie, to unfold more authentically than Bachelor love stories sometimes do-especially in the end. "I think that the audience wants more of that," Trista said, "so I hope that they continue to kind of maybe alter the format for each person and what they need."
As for what's allowed their marriage to last when so many Bachelor relationships have ended? Both emphasize the importance of luck. Ryan was only cast on the show in the first place, for instance, because his college roommate's girlfriend had appeared on the reality competition series The Mole, which shared an executive producer with The Bachelor; Ryan knew nothing about the show when he was later tapped for The Bachelorette. Apart from that, they said, their secret is simple: both make sure to prioritize their relationship, and they live in relatively remote Vail, far from the Southern California epicenter of television. They also had the benefit of appearing on the show before social media added a whole new layer of complication to both The Bachelor and contestants' post-Bachelor lives.
They have also benefited from good timing. "We rode a wave of support when we got off the show," Ryan recalled. "People wanted that kind of story. So when we were successful and came off of it, people were really encouraging, for the most part, and there weren't the easy avenues of criticism that there are now." But when asked whether she believes contestants often appear on the show now as a shortcut to fame-rather than because they are truly open to finding love-Trista demurred. "I choose personally to give everyone the benefit of the doubt," she said. "Just as someone who's been there, I would hope that most people who go on the show, go on the show to actually find the love of their life."
Though their own love story is now readily available online, Ryan said he has no desire to re-watch any of it, apart from their wedding. Which is understandable, since most of their journey involves the woman who would become his wife getting to know a cavalcade of other men. That said, Trista sees things differently: "I am the optimist of the family, and I keep trying to say-so our first moment seeing each other, our first conversation, our first date [are all documented]. No one has that!" When Ryan asked if she'd feel the same, if the situation were reversed and he had been the Bachelor? "I have been married to you for 15 years," Trista said without missing a beat. "So, yes. I know that you chose me."