Weird Details About Jana Duggar And Stephen Wissmann's Marriage We Can't Ignore

Jana Duggar spent 16 years living on her family's Arkansas compound as an adult, but she's finally getting the hell out of Dodge — and the other Duggars will no longer be able to take advantage of her free childcare services. On August 15, Jana married a longtime friend of the Duggar family, Stephen Wissmann.

According to People, Jana and Stephen had "dated" in the past but had split up. Back in the day, the Duggars would have considered this a courtship that didn't work out, as Jana's parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, don't believe in the concept of dating. The near-militant independent Baptists hold patriarchal, old-fashioned views many people would consider extreme — the Duggar family rules include no kissing or hand-holding before marriage. But apparently, one thing they don't frown upon is double in-laws. Before Jana and Stephen decided to give their romance a second chance, Jana's younger brother, Jeremiah Duggar, married Stephen's sister, Hannah Wissmann. This means Jeremiah and Hannah's kids will be double first cousins with any children that Jana and Stephen have.

Four of Jana's younger sisters got married before she did: Jill Duggar, Jessa Duggar, Jinger Duggar, and Joy-Anna Duggar. They all had church weddings, whereas their 34-year-old sister decided to walk down the aisle at The Grand at Willow Springs, a luxury wedding venue. Another surprising detail about Jana's nuptials is that Jill was missing from her wedding party, but her dress choice might be the biggest shocker of her big day.

Jana Duggar's wedding dress featured an off-the-shoulder neckline that dipped into a wide V. It exposed her collarbones and shoulders, which is a violation of the Duggar family's dress code. Describing her family's views on modesty in a 2012 TLC blog, Michelle Duggar wrote, "We felt like we needed to be covered from our neck to below our knees mainly because God talks about the thigh being uncovered, and how that's nakedness and shame."

Jana's gown was also very Disney-coded. "The dress felt classy and a bit like a princess," the former "Counting On" star told People. It was perhaps more Sleeping Beauty's style, whereas Jana has often been compared to Cinderella. When the Duggars first began appearing on TLC, some viewers tuned in because they saw them as a paragon of family values. Others, however, developed a morbid fascination with the Duggars' twisted family dynamics. It wasn't lost on these hate-watchers that Jana was expected to act as a sister-mom to her younger siblings, with marriage being the only acceptable way to escape this fate.

Jana's parents seem to frown upon women pursuing roles outside of homemaking or helping with family businesses, but Jana told People she's been attending nursing school since 2023. She and Stephen Wissmann will reside in a land far, far away from her family: Nebraska. It's probably as close to a fairytale ending as a member of the scandal-plagued Duggar clan is going to get.