Another Duggar daughter is heading down the aisle!
Just days after it was speculated that Joy-Anna Duggar‘s relationship with her boyfriend, Austin Forsyth, was about to go to the next level (as hinted in the just-released trailer for the upcoming season of Counting On), the Duggar family has announced that Joy and Austin are officially engaged.
According to the couple, the proposal happened yesterday.
“We just got engaged!” Joy told Us Weekly. “I’m so excited to be engaged to my best friend. Austin made it so romantic, it’s amazing.”
According to TLC, Austin proposed to Joy after a day of horseback riding. In a video made after the engagement, Joy says that her younger sisters, Jennifer and Johannah were present on the date when Austin popped the question.
“I knew we were ready for this next step because everything fell into place,” Austin says in the video. “I got the OK from Mr. Duggar and my dad, and the timing on the Lord…everything was just perfect.”
Now that they’re engaged, Joy and Austin are allowed to hold hands.
“That’s pretty special,” Joy says in the video.
Joy has known Austin for most of her life. (His family is friends with the Duggars.) They began courting last fall.
“I feel like engagement is more special [than courting] because we’re committed to each other now,” Austin says in the video. “We’re just moving forward until the day we get married. It’s exciting.”
The couple has not yet revealed when they plan to get hitched. However, the Duggar family is generally not fond of long engagements. All of Joy’s older married sisters–Jill, Jessa and Jinger— were engaged for a relatively short period of time before marrying.
As The Ashley previously pointed out, if Joy were to get married this year, she would be the youngest Duggar daughter bride at the age of 19. Her sisters were several years older than she is now when they got hitched. (For reference, Jill was 23 on her wedding day, while Jessa was 21 and Jinger was 22. The girls’ mother, Michelle, was only 17 when she got hitched to Jim Bob.)
Surprisingly, Joy has yet to join social media. (Her sibling were all “allowed” to get on Twitter and Instagram once they entered courtships. However, Jinger and Joy have yet to make accounts.)
Click here to read facts about other Duggar engagements/weddings!
Watch Joy and Austin’s engagement announcement below:
(Photo: TLC)
32 Responses
Congratulations, Joy and Austin! May God bless your union! 🙂 🙂
One of the sons courted, but it ended without them getting engaged – Josiah…I wonder what happened there!
That happen during the Josh scandal.
At least this guy is a long time family friend and she actually knows him.
Hey I get why Jimmy the Boob-man and the woman who he lives with have to get rid of their daughters as fast as they do. They need the show to get renewed because it’s the only way of income for most of them! They have clearly noticed that if they donate one daughter per season for anyone willing to ask, they get yet another season where they can plan the wedding and guess who’s pregnant.
Now all of the girls that Josh messed with will be married and out of the house. Maybe that is Jim Boob’s plan. Sweep the scandal out of the house.
*sigh* She’ll be married in a couple of months and most likely pregnant by her 20th birthday.
The 4 little girls are probably in intense slave training right now. There’s no way Jana can take care of everything by herself.
What is the deal with the boys? Josh is the only one to court and marry, but the daughters are being married off so quickly. Is it because as a male in their religion, they have the freedom to find a career and make lives for themselves? I ask because the only daughter left of age to court is Jana. How ever will they keep their names in the spotlight if the adult males don’t start marrying off?
Guys usually wait to get married longer than girls. I guess it’s because they’re supposed to be able to support a wife and a million babies so they need some financial stability. I think Joseph is going to announce a courtship very soon. They’re probably waiting for her girlfriend to turn 18.
Don’t forget Josiah courted when he was barely 18 himself! (And his girlfriend was 17 at that time) Maybe a rekindling?
What’s the deal with the boys you ask. Here is what I think. The girls, for one, are making rash, foolish choices on husbands as a desperate attempt to get away from their parents. C’mon now. They have some fairly dumb-ass husbands on their hands. It’s clear that Jessa is wearing the pants in her marriage. The boys, well, it really not their fault that they can’t get married. First, most of them aren’t very bright at all. But then they take after their father. Second, Josh probably screwed it up for them. What parent wants to put their daughter into a family with a pedophile and porn lover. Third I don’t see any girl who would willingly submit herself to the rule of that family. They saw from Anna’s unfortunate situation. One of the boys was courting and that girl ran for the hills. The Duggars really aren’t doing their kids any good. Sad sad sad!!
I don’t think the girls made ‘foolish choices’. Derick has a degree in accounting and is a missionary with a loving heart. Ben may not “wear the pants,” but to be fair, Jessa is strong-willed and I think she would be the pants-wearer no matter WHO was the man of the home. Ben is a nice young man, family-minded and kind. He’s getting an education in college. Jinger married a nice man, too. You must have an extremely sad life, to be projecting this kind of hate on good men. I’d laugh at you, but it genuinely makes me sad.
Thanks for saying this. I think people are incredibly unkind about the Duggar family simply because of what Josh did. JOSH should be held accountable for his actions, not his victims, but people are cruel toward these VICTIMS simply because they’re Christian. Breaks my heart. These are good kids. They don’t deserve to fry for what Josh did.
Awkward side hugs for everyone!
Once again, a huge thank you for real updates on people that I’m caring to hear about! You are an email I really look forward too.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know him better”, she says, as she promises to be with this man forever.
The problem is they don’t actually get to know each other better until they are married and there is no more chaperone to watch what they say, do etc. You can’t really get to know someone if someone is always eavesdropping. And then it is to late-your husband could be a Josh and that is a terrible thought!
THIS! That is what creeps me out about these rushed courtships and engagements.
Oooohhh Janna or whatever the oldest name is. Save yourself.
“Now that they’re engaged, Joy and Austin are allowed to hold hands.
‘That’s pretty special,’ Joy says in the video.”
LOL these “courting” rules are literally the dumbest things ever. It’s just a way of controlling women and forcing them to be ignorant of what true romantic love is until it’s too late and she’s already committed “forever” to some loser. Fucking gross
The rules apply to the guys as well so they are equally ignorant.
Except the sons are allowed to molest the younger siblings.
It really is sad. When the kids on that show are interviewed their responses seem very scripted and rehearsed as if they are not allowed to have their own individual thoughts but just repeatedly spew out what their parents have drilled into them. Whenever the producers ask them questions they are all really clueless. I am not sure what kind of education they received by their parents but it clearly wasn’t s good one. They’re all dumb as bricks! it’s sad. They are just clueless. You can see it on their faces. Their eyes are open but their heads are empty. I have no problem with religion or the Bible or anything of that nature but the way they live goes beyond that. It’s sad! Jana needs to run now while she can!
They used the Gothard ATI (“advanced training institute”) homeschool curriculum, I believe. Mama Robot quickly handed off the “teaching” to her older kids.
So they’re pretty much self taught in the art of filling out worksheets on god.
They used “Switched-On Schoolhouse” curriculum. That was said in one of the videos.
Alyssa Bates was 19 when she got married, wasn’t she? And she has two children already by the age of 22. Yeah, Joy is going the same path, I know Austin is prob desperate to YOU KNOW (he’s a 23-year old virgin after all) and I bet she will be pregnant just as fast as her sisters were! (Two of them at least, Jinger seems not to be knocked up just yet)
NO!!!! She is WAY too young!! Gotta transfer ownership quickly to keep the show going!!! What’s next they are going to start pawning off their minor age daughters?
I married at barely 19 years old and had my first child by age 20. We didn’t expect him, and we were trying to prevent pregnancy at the time, but these things happen. I do not regret one moment of that. So, “way too young”…? No. That’s part of what’s wrong with the world today – society stretching childhood all the way into what should be adult years. Immaturity abounds. I was mature and READY to marry my husband at nineteen. Why would I have waited until I was thirty or forty, if I was ready at nineteen? That would be senseless. (Btw, I’m in my 40’s, so I’m not some 20-something who hasn’t gained wisdom yet. 😉 I have aged and I’m still not regretting having married at age nineteen.)
It blows my mind that these girls date 1 person, and that’s who they marry….if I married the person I dated when I was 19…heck when I was in my early 20’s, I would have the most miserable life
These girls seem so happy but they know nothing else. They are spoon fed that they must be men’s servants and mothers asap. I hope one of them gets a chance at something else like college, or traveling solo, or something, anything!! She will be pregnant shortly after the wedding of course. How does he make money? Flipping houses? That won’t create a stable family supporting income. Insert eye roll
But he’s fundie and Dim Bulb approved, and that is ALL that matters.
I was a young bride myself, but I picked my own man. Not allowed for the Duggar girls (and they do seem like little girls when they marry, not grown women.)
If they are happy, leave them to be happy. Why would they need to “know something else” (translation: carnal, worldly junk) if they are happy as they are, innocent and unspoiled? They’re fine. Leave them be.