After being left at the altar, Kenny Barnes has found love again. The ‘Love is Blind’ star recently popped the question to girlfriend Alexandra Garrison.
He proposed on August 7 at the Duke Mansion in Charlotte, North Carolina. His original plan to propose at the Biltmore Estate where they had their first date fell through due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Barnes took to Instagram to announce their engagement.
“Fiancé has a nice ring to it…Alexandra and I are excited to announce our engagement! To all of our friends, family and acquaintances, thank you for the continued love and support – we appreciate everyone and cannot wait to celebrate this next step together,” he wrote.
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Barnes and Garrison have been dating a little over a year, and they met after he appeared on the Netflix dating series. His younger sister Anna introduced the pair.
“Alexandra and Anna had been friends for nearly three years while living in Charlotte and when I came to town to help move Anna, I met Alexandra at the brewery, Wooden Robot,” Barnes tells People.
“What’s funny is that there was apparently an ‘inside joke’ among their friends that Alexandra should date me. Alexandra knew who I was during that entire three-year period, but since we lived in separate cities and had never met, there was never an opportunity to entertain anything.”
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Barnes knew she was the one from an early stage.
“There are definitely moments in the early stages of our relationship where the thought crossed my mind, but the moment that sticks out most is when she and I stayed up looking at the stars during a summertime trip to Lake Gaston,” he tells Peopls. “We talked for at least six hours and ended up falling asleep on the couch upstairs. It was then that I knew we were on the same page and that we were meant to be.”
Barnes was famously engaged to costar Kelly Chase on the Netflix reality show Love is Blind, where participants had to build a romantic connection with someone without ever seeing them in person. Barnes and Chase seemingly fell in love before physically meeting and became engaged.
However, once they met and began to live life as a couple, cracks began to appear. In the show’s finale, Chase said “I don’t” and left Barnes at the altar.
Reflecting on his time on the show, Barnes says it was a necessary learning experience.
“It was physically and emotionally draining but allowed me to become more in tune with myself and what I wanted in a partner. The most important thing I learned was how to honor and love the things that truly make me happy. To take those things and, instead of catering to someone out of convenience, find someone that truly has your best interest in mind to share it with.”
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Feature image: Instagram / Kenny Barnes
