Jimmy Fallon Explains Why His Proposal to His Wife Got Delayed By 3 Months

From Good Housekeeping

• Jimmy Fallon married Nancy Juvonen in 2007.

• They are parents to two daughters: Winnie Rose, born in 2013, and Frances Cole, born in 2014.

• He is set to host One World: Together at Home with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel on Saturday, April 18 at 8 p.m. on NBC.

Now that Jimmy Fallon is hosting The Tonight Show: At Home Edition each night from the comfort his own home, fans are seeing the late night host from a whole new lens. Throughout his nightly show, Jimmy sprinkles in adorable moments with his daughters, Winnie and Frances, along with a popular segment called "Ask the Fallons" where, just as the name implies, he answers fan questions with his wife Nancy Juvonen.

As it turns out, Jimmy and Nancy have an incredible love story, which started 15 years ago thanks to their mutual friend Drew Barrymore. Since then, the couple has been inseparable: They wed in 2007, and later had two daughters (a.k.a. the true stars of Jimmy's at-home broadcast), Winnie and Frances.

On a recent "Ask the Fallons," the couple reflected on the night they first met. Years before they officially started dating, Jimmy introduced himself to Nancy at a taping of Saturday Night Live. Jimmy, of course, was a cast member from 1998 to 2004, and Nancy was there to support her close friend and the show's celebrity host, Drew Barrymore. While Nancy was initially taken aback by Jimmy's hospitality on set, their relationship didn't progress — until the two reunited on set of Jimmy and Drew's movie, Fever Pitch.

Nancy, who was one of the producers of the movie, admits that she developed a crush on Jimmy when she watched him interact with a co-producer's kids on set. "I played with Lucy and Jimmy played with Charlie — really played, really into it, as if they’d come to visit us. So, I think that’s when my heart just sort of melted even more," she gushed during "Ask the Fallons."

For Jimmy, the connection was instant. "You walked to set and I want to say you had on white pants, a pink sweater and a green backpack ... and blonde hair and your white teeth," he told Nancy. "You just stood out in this gray — it was almost like a painting. You stood out like neon."

Even after the movie wrapped, the couple's love story carried on — though they had a few bumps in the road. When Fallon was set to propose, Nancy unknowingly secured reservations at the one of the top restaurants in New York City, Per Se. "I didn't want to propose in Per Se because what if one year it moves locations and years later I'm going to have kids and go, 'Your mom and I got [engaged here]. I know it's a laser tag place but at one point it was a very fancy restaurant,'" he said during "Ask the Fallons."

So, he waited three months until he found the perfect moment to propose. While at her parents' summer home on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee in August 2007, Jimmy asked Nancy to marry him. "I went out to the dock and said [to myself], 'Don't cry. Let her cry first,'" he says. "I'm a pretty mushy guy… and I just wanted it to be perfect," he recalled. They eventually wed on December 29, 2007 at Necker's Island.

Although the couple kept their relationship relatively private, Jimmy opened up about their five-year journey to have a baby — when he had some exciting news to share. "We tried for a long time, for five years. Anyone who has tried will know that it's just awful," he told Savannah Guthrie during a Today interview in 2013. They eventually decided to take the surrogacy route for both of their daughters.

Their oldest daughter Winnie Rose was born on July 23, 2013. Her name, which was loosely inspired by the couple's proposal spot Lake Winnipesaukee bears an extra-special meaning: "She's a win for us. It's a big win for us." He announced the birth of their daughter during his monologue on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

He did the same when their second daughter Frances "Franny" Cole was born. She arrived on December 3, 2014, and the talk show host gushed about the family's new addition on an episode of The Tonight Show. "I just want to say it’s just a big deal for us and I just want to thank everyone, the nurses and the doctors and our surrogate, who had our baby. There are angels in Dallas, Texas."

While the talk show host says his daughters are completely different — Winnie is "very polite," and Franny, "if I turn around for one second, she has two knives" — there's a chance they may follow in his footsteps. "Whenever we can, we put on little shows. My wife and I will sit down and we’ll watch them sing a song or tell a story. Little family talent show. We’re going to be the next Osmonds," he told People.

All jokes aside, Jimmy regularly gushes about his little family, even saying that fatherhood is the "greatest thing that has ever happened to me." And quite frankly, the smile on his face says it all.

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