Will There Ever be a Duggar-Bates Wedding?

[19 cats and counting]

Yep - someone has to pay for the weddings that he can't afford?

Or does that not happen anymore?

Edited to fix quote tag.

If paying for-- getting them filmed, then TLC paid for Erin's and ABC paid for Alyssa's. It's safe to assume that UP will pay for Michael's.

[lunaselene503]

I have a hunch that there will be two or three Duggar/Bates pairings. However one or two will be between younger kids. The vey first match will be Lawson and Joy Anna however. From wutwuzdat's post it seems that Lawson started spouse shopping in 2013. Someone realized Joy Anna was a possibility last year with an instagram comment on a June 2014 post on Lawson's ig.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're special friends and that's why the Duggars and Bates have been hanging out even more than usual. Lawson and Joy Anna will probably start courting at the end of the year (but may not reveal it until early 2016) after her 18th birthday. Then they'll get engaged after a year and have a six month engagement, making Joy Anna 19 and a half at the wedding. It's the same age Alyssa and Ben were when they married John and Jessa respectively.

[DuggarsTheEndIsNear]

I have a hunch that there will be two or three Duggar/Bates pairings. However one or two will be between younger kids. The vey first match will be Lawson and Joy Anna however. From wutwuzdat's post it seems that Lawson started spouse shopping in 2013. Someone realized Joy Anna was a possibility last year with an instagram comment on a June 2014 post on Lawson's ig.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're special friends and that's why the Duggars and Bates have been hanging out even more than usual. Lawson and Joy Anna will probably start courting at the end of the year (but may not reveal it until early 2016) after her 18th birthday. Then they'll get engaged after a year and have a six month engagement, making Joy Anna 19 and a half at the wedding. It's the same age Alyssa and Ben were when they married John and Jessa respectively.

While I imagine a Joy/Lawson courtship could happen, I don't expect her to get married before 20.

[CorruptionInc.]

While I imagine a Joy/Lawson courtship could happen, I don't expect her to get married before 20.

Could you imagine how many people would be in the Wedding Party?

[Knight of Ni]

A Duggar-Bates wedding may be likely. I see it almost as the pure bloods in Harry Potter insisting on marrying only other pure bloods. Eventually every family is connected somehow and you may even marry somebody distantly related to you. I can see the same thing happening with the fundamental families in the United States. There are relatively few fundamentalists and they insist on staying insular. Eventually options are going to run out. If not the current generation of Duggar and Bates offspring but maybe the next generation will marry.

[roddma]

A Duggar-Bates wedding may be likely. I see it almost as the pure bloods in Harry Potter insisting on marrying only other pure bloods. Eventually every family is connected somehow and you may even marry somebody distantly related to you. I can see the same thing happening with the fundamental families in the United States. There are relatively few fundamentalists and they insist on staying insular. Eventually options are going to run out. If not the current generation of Duggar and Bates offspring but maybe the next generation will marry.

This is what I think too. It is kind of like royalty. 98% are kin somehow. IMHO I don't think Derick would have made the cut the years ago.Maybe Boob realized pickings are slim. I am surprised Gil found suitable mates for their daughters given that.

[AngelGirl8811]

I think with both families keeping it sweet on camera, it's hard to tell what the actual relationship between them is. The kids definitely like each other a lot and I think that in the future there could be a Duggar/Bates wedding but maybe it won't happen until ratings go down again. I wouldn't be surprised if Boob threw Jana or Jinger at Lawson if things started looking bad.

[Sundaymorning]

I wouldn't be surprised if there will be a Duggar-Bates wedding in future. If not among the older ones, then maybe among the younger kids.

If a Duggar and a Bates would truly fall in love, I don't think that the parents would be against it. I mean, even if they don't really like each other, it would bring good ratings and $$ (assuming that they somehow still would be present in the media), and like others said, it's not like that the kids have such a huge pool of potential mates to choose from (unless they would pick a non-fundie).

Unless the Duggars and the Bates parents secretely hate each other very much, I think they would just suck it up. They wouldn't be the first parents who don't really like the parents of their child's spouse and it's not like they are next-door neighbors, so meetings could be few and far between.

[DuggarsTheEndIsNear]

A Duggar-Bates wedding may be likely. I see it almost as the pure bloods in Harry Potter insisting on marrying only other pure bloods. Eventually every family is connected somehow and you may even marry somebody distantly related to you. I can see the same thing happening with the fundamental families in the United States. There are relatively few fundamentalists and they insist on staying insular. Eventually options are going to run out. If not the current generation of Duggar and Bates offspring but maybe the next generation will marry.

I don't think they'll "run out of options." Short of double cousons marrying each other (ie if Joy and Lawson had a child who married a child from Josiah and Tori), there isn't much risk of genetic problems occurring with the offspring. First, but not double, cousins share only 1/8 of their genes, and the risk of having a child with a genetic mutation/condition passed on by both parents only increases by 1.7-2.8% over that of people who aren't related. Of those, only 4.4% will have significant birth defects.

That said, a fundie to fundie union is definitely the "prize, but its already been shown that a convert is good enough. Look at Whitney and Derick.