Almost Famous In Depth: Kenny Braasch & Mari Pepin

Ben and Ashley are going IN DEPTH with the latest Bachelor success story, Kenny Braasch and Mari Pepin! 

Find out the difference between single Kenny and relationship Kenny… you’ll be shocked at the change!
 
And, the happy couple reveals how “the spark” started in Paradise!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This has been and Ashley I Almost Famous in Depth. Hey, guys,
welcome to the Almost Famous podcast today. It's an in
depth one of our Bachelor Nation engaged couples, Kenny Brash
and Mauri Peppin. Hello, guys, welcome to the show. Hid
excited to be here. Give us a timeline here, Okay,
how long now has it been since you've gotten engaged?

(00:25):
It has been a year and nine ish months, almost
two years, almost two years together. It's fast, It's fast,
but slow, like when I think about it, like, yeah,
it has gone by fast, but also it's been almost
two years. Like how, I don't know how. I don't know.
That's crazy. I'm a figuring that you guys probably took

(00:47):
that first year to kind of date in real life
and then this year has been more of a wedding
planning year. Yeah, for sure. I think last year was Yeah,
it was pretty much just me moving in. I've been Yeah,
we've lived together for the year now, getting to know
Chicago and being here together, and then yeah, I think
we started really wedding playing like end of last year,

(01:08):
November December. So yeah, yeah, that's so it goes. You
stay out of it, you just pull back as far
as you can until you're asked to enter in, and
then you still enter in very slowly, with very calculated opinions. Kenny,
you know we talked to you about this. I mean,
it's gotta been a year and a half ago now
when you first got engaged. But for you, life changed

(01:29):
pretty quick. Right. You had been single, you were you know,
you had your work in Chicago, you'd your place in Chicago.
Then you go on the show you find love, and
you get engaged, and now you enter in this whole
new season of having a partner. How is life I
guess looked differently to you. How have you transitioned into
no longer being the single? You know, promoter I think

(01:50):
would be the job title that you had to now
having a relationship. Well, going back to like the whole
weird thing for me is like it all started when
COVID started. It was like COVID started in obviously like
March twenty twenty, like the bar got shut down and

(02:12):
all that stuff, and it was like April of that
year is when I kind of got going through the
casting process for Bachelorette, and then like that happened and
it went straight into paradise and then like you said
it and went paradise, Mett Maury got engaged, and now

(02:33):
here we are twenty twenty three. So it's been it's
been kind of pretty wild that and it all coincides
with COVID, like everything's shut down and now I feel
like twenty twenty three, at least in my world and
the band entertainment world, we're actually experiencing like twenty nineteen

(02:54):
type numbers again for the bar and for the bands
and stuff, and it's like it all was like a
flash and now I'm back to like normal with work,
but we're also engaged and about to get married as well,
so it's it's been kind of trippy. I guess the
way the time is just the way it all fell together. Um,

(03:18):
but you know, I'm yeah, it was a one eighty
uh life change for me from that point to hear,
but it's it's all for the better for me. I mean,
it's just I'm good with it. Like it's like it's
like I'm back to like where I was work wise,
but it's now we also have our thing going on

(03:38):
as well, so it's, yeah, why do I remember that
you just really weren't like a serious relationship guy. You
hadn't really had a ton in your past. Yeah, going
back to uh yeah before Bachelor read it was pretty
much not a whole lot going on for a long time. Yeah,
So it's definitely a different, a whole different way in

(04:01):
life at this point. So, Mari, how has he transitioned
into couple Kenny and not single guy? Well, I mean
I can say as far as couple Kenny, he's a
great partner. I don't but I didn't really know him
as single Kenny, So I'm not entirely sure. But from

(04:23):
what he's told me and when his family's told me, like,
it's true, he was never really a great relationship guy.
I mean he maybe had a couple like short things,
but nothing there was like one that got kind of
like semi serious or whatever, but they didn't like her anyway.
So just you fell into it. You just you know,
once you find your right person, doesn't matter whether you

(04:44):
have a relationship experience or not. That's how I found it.
I agree, Yeah, Because I mean for someone who hasn't
been in a relationship or seriously with someone, never lived
with another person, I mean, at this point, I feel
like you never would have known that. So Maria, you
did mention you moved to Chicago, one of my favorite
places in the world, about two hours west of where
I grew up. So Chicago was the big city. Um

(05:07):
to my little small town in Indiana. What's what's the
transition been like? Um, this isn't your first winter there,
that's your this is your second winter there. The summers
are amazing, the winters are awful, brutal. So this winter
has been like the warmest ever. It's been wild. Yeah supposedly, Yeah, No,

(05:30):
it's actually it's sunny today, it feels nice, but yesterday
was like raining, thunderstorm, snowing, Like it's it's so weird.
But um, well, there were a couple of days where
it was like below zero wind chill, and I was like,
we're not going outside at all. No, no, But it's
been a good transition. Um. I visited plenty of times

(05:51):
before actually moving here. So when we were still you know,
in hiding or whatever, we would take turns and visit
each other. So I had been to Chicago a few times.
I'd met his family already, seeing you know, the apartment
we live in, the same building that he used to
live in before we got engaged, just in a bigger
unit now, so I was kind of like slowly getting
acclimated before. It was a fecial that I moved here anyway,

(06:13):
so it was like a nice gradual transition. But you're
absolutely right. The weather sucks in the winter. A big
fan of the summertime though. There's a lot to do
and we have to go down by the river and stuff,
which is nice. But yeah, I wasn't expecting the winter
to be so brutal. Yeah, but the summers are great.
Chicago is a great city. It's an incredible place. I

(06:33):
want to say, Chicago is still one of my favorite
cities in the US. It's just I wouldn't live there
because of the winter. Yeah. Ideal situation is like buy
a house in Puerto Rico and do half and half
or something in the future. Yeah. Well, speaking of Puerto Rico,
you guys are gonna have two weddings, one ceremony in

(06:54):
November in Puerto Rico and then another one a year
from now in March in Chicago. Yes, yeah, we got
it now, all right, So how are the weddings going
to be different? Is it double? The stress planning two
weddings is one more of a ceremony and one more
resumption tells everything. Yeah, so they're gonna be super different.

(07:16):
I feel like it's not double the stress right now
because we're kind of taking it one at a time.
So right now we're just planning and focusing on the
Puerto Rico wedding, but there will be a point of overlap,
like later in the summer slash Ball before our Puerto
Rico wedding, we're gonna have to start planning Chicago. So
there's gonna be like two at once. That's I'm still

(07:38):
going to be super stressful. Um, but in terms of differences, yeah,
Puto Rico is going to be more like a it's
just family, very close people, and it'll be very small comparatively.
And then the one in Chicago, it's going to be
like hundreds of people, all Bachelor nations invited. Like that's
the more party situation. Yeah, Chicago, it's gonna almost like

(08:00):
we're going to be at the venue that I work for,
So it will be a lot easier planning because it's
all kind of going to be done in the house. Uh.
We our place dones weddings already and we do big events.
It holds a lot of people, So a lot of
the planning that we have to do for Puerto Rico
won't have to happen too too much for Chicago. It

(08:23):
will really just be like a big party. Yet we
might even do like an eighties party. Oh that would
be fun and a very reminiscent of the eighties party
during your season. Yeah, yeah, prom exactly are you guys

(08:47):
going to even have a ceremony at the Chicago wedding? Um?
I don't think so. Maybe it's not like a full
ceremony like mark on the aisle, like bring their men
of that, but maybe the small like a like a
vow renewal or something. Because there are family members that

(09:07):
won't be able to make it to utter to his grandma,
for example, I won't be able to come, and we
want to do something small that's kind of like ceremony ish,
just for them to be able to see it, but
not like a full block down the aisle type of ceremony. Yeah, Kenny,
you're gonna learn that during this time of planning and

(09:27):
when questions are asked like is there going to be
a ceremony at this event, you just automatically inside like
stop talking, like you just started like, I have no opinion.
I want to do whatever's best and whatever needs to
be done. And that's the best thing you can do
right now is just to be a support system for
this big bay. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, I should have

(09:47):
just waited and reacted to whatever she's It's fine, it happened.
It will happen a ton more times. You'll be right. Uh,
you know, you're a year in nine months engaged now.
We love to talk about relationships and the progressive relationships
on this show. I don't want to assume that anything here,

(10:07):
but how have you kept the spark alive? Or does
it feel like you're in a different season now in
your relationship where that like initial kind of like excitement
eu fork love has now passed and you're entering into
a new, whole new stage. Kind of give us an
idea of where you're at, maybe what your struggles have been,
what things you've done to keep the love alive and
keep the love going strong. We're we've quickly entered our

(10:34):
old like we've been married for thirty years, go to bed,
see nothing. I think because we met and got engaged
on Paradise, it's a lot different than a normal couple
because it's it's so over the top on Paradise, like

(10:56):
you know, the dates and the atmosphere, you know, it's
all like shove together and quick period of time and
you experience a lot of stuff quickly, as opposed to
in real life where it's like you go on a
date every couple of weeks and you get to know
each other blah blah blah blah blah. So it's like
that spark stuff happened really fast because of Paradise. Not

(11:17):
to say that we don't have a spark and it's
still there, it just looks different, right, it's a different thing. Yeah,
I would agree with it. Yeah, I think like coming
off a paradise, but there's so much excitement not only
that you're engaged to someone that you're like in love,
but there's so much excitement also in terms of the
secrecy aspect. It's like, oh my god, I have the
secret that I can't tell anyone, and that kind of

(11:40):
mystery about it makes it even more exciting. And then
you get to see it on national television, which is
also super exciting. Um. So once that kind of passes,
it does quickly like not dissipate but it's like not
the same. But I think for us in terms of
keeping it alive, it's it's pretty easy. It comes naturally,
I think at least for me. We just have a

(12:01):
good routine and we have our like daily this is
what we do, this is how we are, and it
almost is like we've been married for thirty years at
this point because everything is just kind of routine and natural. Yeah,
it's it's a fun stage in a relationship. The spark
is still there, your commitment is still there. It just
looks different because yes, you maybe have learned more about
the person and you've gotten in a rhythm with them,

(12:25):
And that's for me, I was telling Ashley, Like, for me,
that's been the coolest part of my marriage is getting
in that rhythm and getting very comfortable in the same
house with somebody else. If anything, it's more exciting to
me sometimes. Yeah, And you guys started out living together,
you know, in Paradise, so you've got to know so
much about each other so quickly that like that discovery

(12:48):
couple a few months isn't as long. Yeah, So you guys,
how has it been as far as your schedule, Because
you talk about like kind of having your rundown of
your day. But Kenny has an interesting job where he
works a lot of nights and you are probably surrounded
by like lots of girls at the same time. Marie,

(13:08):
do you You're just like, nah, you can you just
go to work. You go to work and I'm gonna
But it's funny you say that because lately, so she's
been going to a lot pretty much shows. You don't
go to work with him every night, right, Well, I don't.
I don't. I only go. I work from home mostly, Okay,

(13:30):
I go. We'll go to certain shows that we'll go
when you're doing manage when you're like all your management
stuff is from home, and then you go to the yeah,
the chefs guy. Yeah, so mostly like a boy by
night show, yeah stuff, And she'll go with most of
the time. Um, we've been doing these Taylor Swift dance
parties now where I'm like, amazing Swift stuff whatever. To

(13:53):
be honest, the girls are anybody that's there usually want
to talk to her more than me. Anyways, I can
relate to that. It's all with Jared Hayes. You know,
Jared hates it. It's always like Jared, we love you,
but where's Ashley? So nice? So that's fun, Marie, have

(14:15):
you gotten more into boy band music? Because if Kenny,
because you know, I have to ask, I am boy
band queen. Um, well, you know what, Like I my
parents used to listen to all of that kind of stuff,
New kids on the blog, yeah, and seeing Backstreet Boys
all of it. And then they also do like more
of the younger boy band stuff, so like Jonahs Bose,
which I'm a huge fan of. Um they do one

(14:36):
direction and all that. So so yeah, it's kind of
it's kind of my jam. I'm so jealous. That is
like the most fun job ever. The shows are a
lot of fun. You've got to come to one. Whenever
I'm in Chicago, I will come to one. Yeah, imagine
we should probably bring one of the bands to Audrey's.
Oh my god, do it because they're mostly like boy band.

(14:57):
They're like boy band cover bands. Right, it's one yeah,
so it's one band. It's a full band, seven piece band.
There's three singers who will replicate the boy bands, but
they're too the band playing all the music behind it
literally too cool. That's amazing. They do the dance they do, Yeah,

(15:17):
they do choreography. Everything. This is Ashley's dream, absolute dream.
They do bye bye bye like one of the iconic dances. Yeah,
sync dance, they do a dirty pop, they do the dance.
Most of the stuck out of the record. What a

(15:38):
fun time? Yeah, well most of the stuff, like most
of the songs, I would know a step or two,
step by step. Yeah. Check out Ashley's Instagram. She just
recently posted her dancing to some of these videos. It's
not good. I can dance, but there's an exhilaration behind it.
You can tell the passion. Hey, a couple more questions

(16:11):
here for you before we let you go. One is
you know we talked about wedding. We've talked about multiple weddings.
Do you have any honeymoon plans? We're actually going to
be deciding today? Are the destination? Wait on this day? Yeah?
What's what's the top choices? Here? Where are you leaning? I?
Actually here, here's here's what I'm gonna do. I want
to cause controversy, Kenny, let's start with you. Where are

(16:33):
you leaning towards? Where do you think you're going on
your honeymoon? Well? I think the biggest one is Italy,
which I actually think we both Okay, okay, so now
it's where in Italy? Is that what we're deciding on today? No,
so I have we're gonna pick out of a jar

(16:54):
we have like yeah, we have to like come up
with a definitive like top five Italy is one of them,
and then that we both agree on, we'll stick them
in a jar and then we'll choose one. Oh whoa,
we have to ask so much more about this. If
you're both down for Italy, why not go to Italy?

(17:16):
Because I also would like to go to Hawaii or
the Giraffe manor in Africa. Oh goodness, this is awesome.
So you're literally literally so you're leaving it up to chance,
Like you're gonna put it in a jar and you're
gonna pick it, and then you're only getting one selection.
Who's who's reaching in the jar to pick it. We'll

(17:39):
take turns, we'll go back and forth. Okay, so how
is this going to? Okay? So okay, maybe I we
start off by pulling one out, so there's five or
six in there, we pull one out. The one we
pull out, We're not going on until we get to
the last one. Oh I is where we go? Anny

(18:00):
would have been very confused later when you picked one
out and he's like, yes, we're going to Italy and
then not like we had to set the rules very
clearly decided today was the day. Um well, honestly, it's
just because we do this Wedding Wednesday series and this
was this week's topic was honeymoons. So we're filming it

(18:22):
after this and we're gonna choose our honeymoon during the video. Goodness,
can I just put one in there? Can I add one? Like? Yes,
I'm gonna add like Pittsburgh or like cleaning. That's like
that's the Bachelor add their random city. And you asked
before they go brob. Yeah, yeah, anything like. That's why

(18:47):
I said Wisconsin, like up in the woods for a
couple of days. It would be great. Yeah, it'd be awesome. Um. Well, also, Mare,
you just partnered with smirnov which is a huge deal.
Congratulations on that. Thank you. Tell us more about that
part partnership. Yeah, it was really cool. They decided to
do a twist of the classic margarita, which obviously usually

(19:07):
has tequila in it, um, but Smeirknoff is obviously a
vodka brand, so they came out with the spicy Tamarin
vodka which is sweet from the tarin but it's also
spicy with Hallepeno and they created a margarita with it
and it's actually really really good. Um. So we had
this big party in Miami to kind of take over
margarite a day with the vodka and it was It

(19:29):
was a good time and the drink was really really good.
It was good. Will they be server at the wedding? Now?
Do you have a signature drink that you're thinking for
the wedding? Um? I like a Moscow mule, So that
was gonna be my choice, but I might have to
do that. It's called the Spicy Tamarita Tamari Margarita. Can
we find this Smeirnoff really anywhere? Now? I believe? So, yeah, okay,

(19:53):
it's a big deal. How did you How long have
you worked with them? And how did this partnership start? Well,
was actually my very first time working with Smyrnoff. They're
under an umbrella of Diagio, which is like a bigger
i'll call distributor supplier. They have all kinds of different brands.
But yeah, they reached out. It was actually pretty last minute.

(20:14):
They were like, hey, do you want to come to
Miami next week? We're having this event be our host um,
and luckily we were both available and we're like, yeah,
let's do it. So we went and it went really
well and hopefully we'll be able to have some more
stuff up in the future with that. That's really cool. Well,
we could not you know, let you go before asking

(20:34):
like the final question in this trajectory of marriage and
engage life, do you plan on having children? We couldn't
not be those people. My dad, yeah, in Miami were
again also joined us and he decided that you wanted

(20:56):
to ask that, so that was yeah. No, Well, I
think I'm also the same thing. My ideal timeline would
be in twenty twenty five, so two years from now
we buy a house and then like a year ish later,
when I'm thirty, have our first kid. That's my ideal timeline.

(21:21):
I don't know if it's going to happen that way.
It seems like time. It seems ideal, you know why,
because I also was, um, well wait, well, you'd be
married for three years by the time that the kids born,
and I think pretty ideal. Yeah, I'd actually like to
have it be longer. I wish it was like put

(21:41):
like then you got other clocks. You know, there's lots
of clocks in action. Um so, but I thought that
three years was nice to have a loan. But why
is Kenny like not down for this plan. I have
to just I just have to like put this out there, Kenny,
do you want kids in general? Because your man clock
doesn't really tick so loud. But like you are forty something, yea,

(22:05):
you can obviously be a father whenever you'd like to.
But I know that a lot of guys were about
you know, Kenny, this is another moment energy levels before
you react, I could be ideally I would be like
sixty sixty five. Okay, that's funny. I wasn't sure what
direction you're going to go in. I live my full

(22:27):
life and then on the tail, you know, the kid
without a dad in a few years. That's the other
concerning elements. See, there's so many clocks, guys, and it's
it's annoying and it sucks. Um so. But Kenny, if
you you are forty two now and you look like
you're twenty seven, So if you continue on that trajectory, like,

(22:51):
I'm not worried about you, like live until one hundred.
Honestly with the whole thing. I'm I'm I'm neutral. I'm
okay with her timeline. I'm okay. If it happens accidentally tomorrow,
I'm okay. I'm just you know, I'm not I'm not

(23:15):
pushing for it and I'm not against it. I'm just
I'm just chilling. We can call this episode Kenny is neutral. Yeah,
with all these big life things of his life, I'm
going to change my my I gio yeah. Well, I mean,
I don't see it as Kenny being neutral. What I

(23:38):
see is Kenny being so happy and content in his
relationship with Marie that he's just happy to have her
by his side no matter what life brings. And Kenny,
I respect that. Good for you. Yeah, happy works out,

(23:58):
Kenny and Marie. Thanks for joining us today, con ragulations
on the relationship, on the partnership with Smirnov, on everything
going on in your lives. It's very exciting and we
wish you the best. Thanks so much for having us.
Hi guys, thank you. Follow the Benn and Ashley I
Almost Famous podcasts on iHeartRadio or subscribe wherever you listen

(24:20):
to podcasts.