Jackie Goldschneider and Husband Evan Recall the Moment They Fell In Love With Each Other

Jackie Goldschneider and husband Evan Goldschneider have known each other for nearly two decades. But in a recent exclusive interview with Bravo Insider, it’s clear that The Real Housewives of New Jersey couple is still really into with one another.

RHONJ fans have been following their journey over the last three seasons, and now we’re learning more about the pair — with the couple reflecting back on the early days of their courtship, their wedding, and how life has changed for them in the years since.

But, let’s start at the beginning. “Evan made the first move because he came over to talk to me… I was at a bar with my friend, and she was looking at a menu. It was like a gross beer bar, like a dirty bar. And there was a voice behind us. He said, ‘I hear that the filet mignon is fabulous,’ and we turned around and it was Evan. It was all uphill from there… But curiously, he didn’t ask for my number, only for my email. So we exchanged emails. I don’t know why you didn’t ask for my number,” Jackie said of that first encounter back in December 2003.

”Well, I was very forward looking and thought that, you know, 20 years since or whatever, 17 years, that most of communication would be virtual,” Evan joked.

Soon after, they would go on their first date at a Mexican restaurant. Jackie said, “And then when he called me the next day, [it] was the best phone call ever. I was so happy.”

By around their third date in early 2004, they decided to become exclusive, and before long, as Jackie recalled, "We were just together every day." Later that year, they moved in together, but as Evan added, “We didn’t rush it.”

About a year after that, they became engaged at a place that held a special meaning for them and then eventually married there as well in 2006.

"Something else that’s really sweet is that date where we fell in love at the Mandarin [Oriental hotel in NYC]. He also proposed to me; he surprised me. He was away on a business trip to Germany, and he came home early and surprised me at the Mandarin Oriental," she said. "I went with my friend for an event, and he surprised me and proposed to me at the Mandarin, and then we got married at the Mandarin."

“Don’t know if it’s that place specifically. It’s what it meant to us. It’s like the place where we fell in love with each other. And then because Evan proposed to me there, it just had all of this meaning to us. We had a hell of a wedding. Talk about spending money on a party. It was beautiful, it was big. It was not too [big]; it was like 200 people. But it was glam like you can’t imagine. The Mandarin Oriental has a ballroom on the 36th floor, and it’s all windows, just looks out over every part of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It’s absolutely stunning. We had a four-piece jazz band during the cocktail hour. Then we had the best, best band during the wedding. Tons and tons and tons of food, I mean, no expense was spared. It went way too fast. But I, I don’t think we stopped dancing the whole night,” Jackie said of their wedding.

Evan shared that he may have had a few too many flutes of champagne at the wedding, so his memories might be a little fuzzy. He said, though, that he would have wed Jackie pretty much anywhere. “It could have been a Starbucks on the Upper West Side. But, it was just a meaningful place that you go back and you have one good memory after another. You keep doing it,” he said.

In looking back on those early days, the couple can remember why they fell so hard for one another.

“It was a combination of everything. It was her mind, her appearance, her spunkiness. There was a lot of things that initially drew me to her. I was 29 at the time, so I had been dating a lot of girls over a 10-year span plus,” Evan recalled. “I was really looking for everything. I was looking for the unicorn, which was to have a beautiful face and body but also to be beautiful intelligently and also to have the beautiful inside. So I saw the parts of that immediately. Then I got to know her, and I got to see even more of her, and it’s, I was more convinced that was her.”

Jackie said, “Evan was, on paper, he’s absolute perfection. He went to Michigan, he got an MBA from Georgetown. He’s absolutely brilliant. He’s into sports, which I find, you know, I was raised in a big sports household, so I find that to be such, like, a turn-on. He's really into sports. He had a lot of friends. Like, and he was a, a, like a hedge fund executive. You know, like everything on paper was perfect. And he was just so, usually those guys are such a--holes, but he was so nice. A nice guy. And I really could see, like, a future with him.”

Nearly two decades later, the pair has turned into a family of six thanks to two sets of twins and has settled into life in the suburbs of the Garden State. And the couple has definitely been spending more time together over the last year as they adjusted to a life spent more at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Jackie definitely had a realization during this time together: "I don’t get tired of him. I adore him. I’m not just saying that, I really do. I adore him, I don’t get tired of him. I respect him. We give each other space. We’re not on top of each other. If something’s important to him, I let it go."

Evan added, "I think it’s hard to be with anybody most of the time. But it’s been surprisingly incredibly easy and fun to be with her. Now with the kids, sometimes it gets a little bit tiring because they’re loud and fighting and they’re kids," he laughed. "But with Jackie, it’s been phenomenal. So it's great. I think if we’re ever stranded on a deserted island, I think we may not try to come back. We would just probably stay there."

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