Clare Crawley reveals why her mother didn’t attend her wedding

Clare Crawley has revealed why her mother was not present at her February wedding to Ryan Dawkins. Crawley is best known for her role as the runner-up on the 18th season of ABC’s ‘The Bachelor’.

She was also featured as the lead of the 16th season of ‘The Bachelorette’ and appeared in Seasons 1 and 2 of ‘Bachelor in Paradise’ and ‘Bachelor Winter Games’. Crawley ended up marrying Mascot Sports CEO Ryan Dawkins in an intimate ceremony in Sacramento, California earlier this year.

During an appearance on the latest episode of iHeartRadio’s ‘Most Dramatic Podcast Ever With Chris Harrison,’ ‘The Bachelorette’ star explained that her mother was ultimately absent from her wedding due to to illness, revealing that she is in “the late stages of dementia” and ended up “getting really sick.”

“Ryan, by nature, is an event planner, so he planned the whole wedding. I was kind of frozen with, what do we do? It was very last-minute stuff, and I was so worried about my mom,” she said. “But he took the reins. He planned everything... We had a little ceremony. We had the best vows to each other, super personal. It was in the spot that we had our first kiss. It was just the greatest little spot.”

Change of plans

Clarkson got emotional while explaining that the pair initially planned for a summer wedding in Mexico before her mom began to get sick.

“I always wanted to get married on June 21. It’s [the] summer solstice. I was like, ‘What if she doesn’t make it to June 21?’ " she explained. “She ended up getting really sick [at the] end of January. And so I said, ‘Let’s have a mini little wedding because she won’t be able to make it to Mexico anyway. A little mini wedding just for her. A special little one for us, for her.’ We were almost going to stage this tiny little wedding for her to be there.”

“Not even my sisters were coming. We wanted to make it tiny. Everybody [else] was going to come to the big wedding,” she later continued. “But my mom ended up the day before getting really, really sick. She wasn’t able to make it. She’s okay still, but she was just really sick at the time and couldn’t leave the nursing home.”

Still included in her plans

Although her mom wasn’t present during the ceremony, Crawley explained that the couple still included her in the big day by visiting her afterward.

“We went to In-N-Out, got some burgers, and then went, in our outfits and everything, and saw my mom,” she added.