Jill Duggar Reveals She and Husband Derick Dillard ‘Had to Reenact’ Proposal for TLC Show

Jill Dillard (née Duggar) revealed that she and her husband, Derick Dillard, “had to reenact” their proposal for the cameras when they starred on 19 Kids and Counting.

The former TLC star, 33, took to Instagram on March 29 to reflect on the engagement that took place in March 2014. “Throwback to 11 years ago today, on a beautiful Saturday in the not-so-small-town square in Bentonville, Arkansas, when I said, ‘Yes!! Totally!’” to spending the rest of my life with the man of my prayers and dreams!” Jill wrote alongside a throwback photo of Derick, 36, down on one knee, as well as more photos from the proposal and some recent photos of the couple. “I couldn’t be more thankful to have @derickdillard by my side through the ups and downs of life! LYSM babe!”

The caption concluded with Jill revealing a fun behind the scenes fact about filming the proposal scene featured on the show. “Fun fact: When shooting the proposal, we had to reenact it again to make sure the crew had everything they needed from all the camera angles,” she wrote. “Also, when we initially walked toward the square, the people helping keep the square cleared for our film shoot didn’t know we were the couple they were supposed to let in, so at first they said, ‘I’m sorry, there’s a film shoot happening right now, so we can’t let you on the square for a minute.’ But they let us pass once we let them know we were part of the shoot.”

She added, “I didn’t know exactly where Derick was gonna propose, but had made him narrow it down to the month and by that time pretty much knew it would be sometime that day.”

Earlier in the caption, Jill shared that musician Walker Hayes “was friends/neighbors with our reality TV producer at the time, so he got Walker & Derick together [and] they wrote a song about our love story that Walker & his band performed in the square just before Derick proposed.”

“My sister [Jessa Seewald (née Duggar)] and I were courting & engaged on nearly the same timeline, so we had lots of double dates and late night discussions on all the relationship details,” Jill continued in the caption.

The former reality star also recalled that the “first few months of our relationship were a bit crazy.”

In addition to “lots of filming,” Jill was studying for her “Midwifery classes, went on a book tour for recent book launch, planned our wedding (wedding was 3 months after engagement) and meanwhile Derick worked full-time for @walmart as a tax accountant + took a seminary class, all while his mom @cldilla battled for her life with non-Hodgkins lymphoma & nearly died the week before our wedding.”

“We were so blessed to have friends and family come alongside us and we know it was God’s grace that carried us through that time!” she continued.

The couple went on to tie the knot on June 21, 2024. They have since welcomed kids Israel 9, Samuel, 7, and Frederick “Freddy,” 2.