Family visits on The Bachelorette can be a real heartbreaker.
For the four guys who welcomed Ashley Hebert onto their home turf in Monday's episode, introducing her to their moms and becoming supervulnerable was only half the fun!
Sure, Ames made time stand still under a magnolia tree, Ben poured wine straight from his own vineyard, J.P. took her for a whirl around the rink and Constantine's family was ready to make her into an honorary Greek, but which picture-perfect days would stand out in Ashley's mind when it came time to give one of these increasingly charming guys the heave-ho?
Aw, Ames (who never stops smiling, even when shafted during the rose ceremony).
"I'm composed all the time, but now...I don't know," he admitted to Ashley during the requisite goodbye talk. "It's been totally beautiful and full of the unexpected, and even more poetic than I would have imagined."
He afterward admitted to following in love with someone who didn't fall back.
But the Pennsylvania-bred New Yorker's dismissal wasn't really a shock. Ashley admitted she was yearning to feel the spark with him and, though they had a romantic picnic in Chadds Ford, Pa.'s most beautiful garden, it just wasn't enough.
Meanwhile, she picked Ben first off, duh. The 28-year-old winemaker, whose heart has been uncorked by Ashley, made it a point to tell her how getting along with his mom and sister would be imperative. Luckily, she did.
Not to mention, they're hot and heavy for each other.
Which makes sense, considering she also finds Constantine (aka Ben's separated-at-birth Greek twin) to be the perfect guy, physically.
Constantine's big fat Greek family in Cumming, Ga., seemed ready to suck Ashley right in—once his mom was satisfied that Ashley would move there to be with her son—after their daylong visit, during which she toured her suitor's Italian restaurant, loving how he walked around there "like a stud."
And then there's J.P., who apparently got his heart wrecked by his last girlfriend, making his entire Long Island, N.Y., family concerned about it happening to him again. J.P. has seemingly been ready to elope with Ashley since day one, but he acknowledged that he couldn't use the L-word with her just yet.
Next week, the happy trio is off to Fiji, where three will ultimately prove to be a crowd.
(Originally published July 18, 2011,at 8:15 p.m. PT)