Chris Lane and ‘Bachelor’ Alum Lauren Bushnell Are Officially Married

Country music star Chris Lane and The Bachelor winner Lauren Bushnell married on Friday in a small ceremony in Nashville. The couple married just four months after their engagement and only a year after they went public as a couple. The two married in an indoor “secret garden” in front of just 160 family members and friends.

“I’ve just looked forward to the day for quite some time and I’m glad that it’s finally here,” Lane, 34, told PEOPLE. “I feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be marrying her.”

“I feel like the luckiest girl… We both recognize what we have is special, and we feel very lucky,” Bushnell, 29, added.

Lane and Bushnell met at a radio station event in Austin, Texas in 2015, before Bushnell won The Bachelor Season 20 in early 2017. A year after she ending her engagement with Bachelor star Ben Higgins, Lane asked Bushnell to join a group of friends on a Bahamas vacation. During the August 2018 vacation, they realized they had a spark.

“He talked about how he wanted to be single forever, how he didn’t know if he wanted kids. Chris decided to use our entire trip to completely scare me away,” Bushnell told PEOPLE.

Bushnell admitted she was “just very guarded and protecting myself” during that trip.

“I think we probably both were just fighting ourselves over the whole thing,” Lane chimed in.

After Lane returned to Nashville and Bushnell went back to Los Angeles, they continued talking to each other over the phone and realized they were falling in love. By November 2018, they walked the red carpet together during CMA Awards week in Nashville.

By January, they realized they were in it for the long-haul and Bushnell moved to Nashville. In June, Lane proposed to her at her parents’ home in Portland, Oregon.

Over the summer, Lane toured with Brad Paisley, with Bushnell joining him as often as she could.

“I try to get her out there on the road as much as possible because that makes the road life even more enjoyable for me, having the person that I love most out there,” Lane told E! News in June. “My favorite moment is playing a show knowing that she’s standing over there on the side of the stage, and knowing that I get to walk off stage to her is a feeling that I absolutely love.”

The two picked Nashville wedding planner Josiah Carr of Ninth & Everett to oversee their dream wedding, which took place at the venue 14TENN. The large open room gave Stella Rose Floral space to create a temporary indoor garden.

“I really wanted to incorporate a lot of green,” Bushnell told PEOPLE. “Nashville is really green, and then I’m from Oregon so that’s kind of how I wanted it to feel. I wanted it to have a secret garden kind of feel — really romantic.”

Bushnell’s dress was designed by Olia Zavozina. Lane’s identical twin brother Cory served as his best man, while Bushnell’s maid of honor was her younger sister Mollie. Their first dance was Lane’s song about his propsal, “Big, Big Plans,” which he re-recorded in an acoustic style.

“We have a lot to look forward to,” Lane told PEOPLE about their future. “I’m praying for a long career in music. It’s something I’m very passionate about. To get to have somebody like Lauren as a best friend, just in life, is going to make it a million times better. There’s just so many firsts that we’ll experience — hopefully kids. Just the whole nine yards. I want all of that with her.”

Photo credit: Jason Kempin/Getty Images for CMT