The Duggar family got a lesson in etiquette on Tuesday night's episode of TLC's "19 Kids & Counting" when Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar organized a triple date for themselves, their oldest daughters, and the girls' other halves.
The date night was a surprise for Jill Duggar, 23, and her fiancé Derick Dillard, and Jessa Duggar, 21, and her boyfriend Ben Seewald. Dillard told TLC cameras that after completing a two-year missionary trip in Nepal where eating customs are demonstratively different, he knew dinner etiquette would be a challenge.
"I was really nervous," Dillard said, according to the Daily Mail. "I've been in a country where we ate with our hands for two years."
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"The plan was a big surprise," matriarch Michelle Duggar said during the episode. "We're going to go and learn some dinner etiquette."
The etiquette teacher instructed the men how to pull out chairs for their women and to seat themselves across the table. Seewald needed Jessa Duggar to help him use the knife correctly but he made the biggest impression of the evening, by offering a "toast to love."
"Ben — he is such a sweet romantic," Michelle Duggar said. "I thought, how precious."
The toast left Dillard a bit envious.
"I wish I'd thought of it," he said.
Jill Duggar and Dillard announced in March that they'll be getting married on June 21. The two were introduced by Jim Bob Duggar, a former Arkansas politician, while he and Dillard were both doing missionary work in Nepal.
"When my dad first introduced Derick and I [remotely], we spent hours texting, calling, and talking on Skype while 8,000 miles away from each other,"
Jill Duggar said in a statement on the couple's wedding website on TheKnot.com. "And when we finally met in person in Nepal, we knew within days that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. I love Derick's desire to follow God and to serve others. Derick is so romantic and the proposal was perfect."
"19 Kids & Counting" airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on TLC.
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