Yahoo Movies All About Jonathan Bennett and Fiancé Jaymes Vaughan's 'Symbolic' Engagement Rings
Eric Ita
Your teenage crush is officially off the market!
Actor Jonathan Bennett, who famously played North Shore High School’s popular jock Aaron Samuels in the 2004 comedy Mean Girls, got engaged to his boyfriend Jaymes Vaughan over the holiday weekend — and PEOPLE has all the exclusive scoop on the romantic and emotional proposal.
“He wrote me a song!” Bennett, who currently stars in the groundbreaking Hallmark movie The Christmas House (the network’s first film with an LGBTQ+ lead couple), tells PEOPLE exclusively of the surprise proposal pulled off by Vaughan, the host of Celebrity Page on Reelz. “I was told we were going to be taking family Christmas card photos…but then no one would look me in the eye and I was like what is going on? I later found it out it was because they didn’t want to spoil what was about to happen.”
Eric Ita
He continued, “My sister shouted for me to come outside “real quick” and my FOMO kicked in so I ran outside. Then I looked over and saw Jaymes holding a sign that said, “we never did find our song, so I wrote it for you," and that’s when I knew was getting proposed to.”
Vaughan popped the question with a platinum ring from Kay Jewelers' customization program that featured a brushed satin finish. The groom-to-be says he initially reached out to company because it has been “very supportive of the LGBTQ+ community” over the years.
Eric Ita
Eric Ita
“I told [Kay Jewelers] I had an idea to create something not only for our special moment, but something other LGBTQ+ couples might be inspired by for their rings too,” Vaughan shares. "The idea of the ring in general is really special because at its core it’s symbolic. It’s symbolic of the union between two people and its symbolic of what the relationship is to those two people."
Andrew Herner
One side of the gallery is adorned with diamonds all the way around, while the other side looks like a traditional wedding band. “We both have one,” Vaughan says, explaining that while the couple is engaged, “the diamonds face out so the world sees them." When they tie the knot, Vaughan and Bennett will "flip the rings so the diamonds face us."
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“My reasoning for that is like I told Jonathan: 'The diamonds face us then because my world is exponentially more beautiful now that you are in it forever,'” he adds.
Andrew Herner
Luckily for Vaughan, his future husband's character happens to wear a wedding ring in The Christmas House, so he cleverly asked Bennett's manager for a favor in order to keep the proposal a secret.
"I had him call the wardrobe team on set and have them get his exact ring size," the actor reveals. "Then at night on FaceTime I’d casually ask him about wearing the ring and what he liked about it. From there, I felt like I knew what to do."
Eric Ita
"The team at Kay Jewelers turned that into a rendering, and then after a couple customizations it literally was exactly one hundred percent what I had been seeing in my head the whole time," Vaughan adds. "I couldn’t wait to open that box and show it to Jonathan."
