Hoda Kotb And Joel Schiffman Changed Wedding Plans Multiple Times Before Splitting

Hoda Kotb and Joel Schiffman met in New York City in 2013, but didn't take their relationship public until 2015. Four years later, Schiffman got down on one knee and proposed. "I have to tell you something that a friend of mine, a friend of ours, asked me to let you guys in on a secret. I'll give you her initials. Her initials are Hoda Kotb, and she's engaged," Kotb said on an episode of "Today." "We ended up having a little dinner on the beach," she added. "And he was like, 'I have something else I would like to say,' and he said some beautiful things. And then he got down on one knee. Then he said, 'Would you be my wife?'" she recalled.

From there, the wedding planning began, but things didn't exactly go as they had hoped. The coronavirus pandemic put a bit of a damper on their destination wedding plans, forcing them to make changes multiple times. Kotb and Schiffman set a date for November 2020 but ended up canceling their wedding. "I don't know if a destination will be in the cards anymore. It's been postponed and I always wanted kind of a beach wedding," she told People at the time. The wedding was rescheduled for summer 2021 — but that wound up not working out either.

In July 2021, Hoda Kotb revealed that her wedding plans had changed once more. After planning for a New York area vow exchange, Kotb and Joel Schiffman realized that they really wanted a destination wedding, so they took a step back. "We're just trying to make sure that everyone can travel. That's really what we want to do," she said on "Today With Hoda & Jenna." "We want to do it in a place that we love deep in our soul that means a lot to us, and we want our closest to come. But Joel kept saying, 'Why are we waiting? Let's just go already,'" she explained.

While many fans had been waiting for a wedding update, Kotb surprised the world with some unexpected news; she and Schiffman had split. "We decided we are better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple," she shared on another episode of "Today With Hoda & Jenna" in January 2022. Kotb and Schiffman adopted two children together, a daughter named Haley Joy in February 2017 and another little girl named Hope Catherine in April 2019. Following their split, Kotb has opened up about how things are going with Schiffman when it comes to co-parenting. "He'll have a Saturday, and I'll do the Sunday. We switch each week. He'll take the girls and do some fun things, and I'll take some quiet time. It's a healthy mix, and the kids love it," Kotb told People in August.

Hoda Kotb says she doesn't "regret one day" with Joel Schiffman because of where she is today. "I have two incredible children I share with him. And it's because of Joel that I have Haley and Hope, without question," she told People magazine. Kotb had nothing but glowing things to say about Schiffman, whom she called "a great dad." 

As for how Kotb is moving forward, she seems to be focused on her kids but isn't opposed to dating. On the November 29 episode of "Watch What Happens Live," Kotb said she hasn't gone on any dates. She told Andy Cohen she's waiting for her "Today With Hoda & Jenna" co-star Jenna Bush Hager to set her up. "Have I gone on any dates since Jenna said she was going to set me up? Not yet. But I'm saying yet, because I actually think that Jenna's got a really good track record of setting people up," she explained.

On the March 16 episode of "Today," Kotb told her co-stars that she would totally trust them to set her up. "I actually trust you guys implicitly. If you thought somebody was good for me, I would trust you and go out on that date," she said.