Ashley Siren and Bariki Smith
Jennifer Nicole
Ashley Jones is getting ready to walk down the aisle with longtime love Bariki “Bar” Smith!
The Teen Mom 2 star, 25, exclusively tells PEOPLE preparations are already underway for their “intimate” wedding on Sept. 30. The pair had already secretly tied the knot in 2022, but this time they’re making it official in front of family and friends.
“I am very excited,” Jones says. “I think us waiting this long to have a wedding has really given me the chance to go through a few phases of what I want my wedding to look like.”
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The reality star, who made her MTV debut on Young + Pregnant in 2018 and joined the cast of Teen Mom 2 in 2020, has gone through many ups and downs with her beau. The pair share 5-year-old daughter Holly and have been engaged and called it off several times — but there was one proposal on their seventh anniversary that stuck.
“It was just Bar and I,” Jones recalls of his proposal on the Santa Cruz Pier. “We didn’t have our families there. Our daughter wasn’t there either. It was a really romantic weekend getaway that turned into a proposal.”
Ashley Jones aka Ashley Siren from Teen Mom: Young and Pregnant
Ashley Siren/Instagram
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That intimacy will be carried over to their wedding ceremony.
“At first, I wanted a super gigantic wedding. Invite the whole town. Invite the whole world,” Jones shares. “Now, I want something that is very intimate. Just family and friends who have poured into us over the years and have really seen our growth as a couple.”
“I really want to share this moment with them and [let] them know that all their headaches and phone calls weren’t in vain,” she adds. “We are making this thing work and we appreciate the people that we have invited to celebrate with us.”
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While she wasn’t able to give more details about the wedding just yet, she can dish on how Bar found her “ideal” wedding ring.
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“[He] actually went to pick out my ring and he took my mom with him via FaceTime. They settled on a really, really beautiful ring,” she tells PEOPLE.
“And I wasn’t picky on rings, I didn’t really have an ideal ring, but now that I have my ring, I think it was my ideal ring all along. So he has really good taste,” she says.
Jones also notes it’s no coincidence that the pair, who were born 27 days apart, fell in love: “It’s always meant to be.”
