Jana Duggar opens up about her fears of never finding the right one before tying the knot with new husband Stephen Wissmann.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the former Count on The 34-year-old star opened up about her relationship with Wissmann, 31, whom she married in a “classic, elegant” ceremony in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, on Thursday, August 15.

The couple connected through their large families, with whom they have been friends for a long time. They dated briefly a few years ago before going their separate ways. Despite the split, Jana and Wissmann stayed in touch and “spoke to each other on and off over the years.” Jana’s brother Jeremiah Duggar is married to Wissmann’s sister Hannah.

It was only at the beginning of the year that they got back together and fell in love. “It was as if we were asking ourselves: ‘What are we going to do? We still enjoy each other. We still value each other very much,'” she remembers. Wissmann proposed to her on June 15.

Jana, the eldest daughter of Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar, worried over the years that marriage might not be an option for her.

“I think as I got older, it definitely started happening more and more and I felt like, ‘Okay, this isn’t working. Let me think of something else, maybe I should do something else,'” she says.

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Part of that “something different” was attending college. Last year, Jana enrolled in nursing school.

“That was another interest of mine. And I thought, ‘You know what? Maybe this is more of a calling and I can just throw myself into something,'” she adds.

Over the years, Jana says, she has met many people, but nothing ever came of it. “I just thought: ‘What’s wrong? Is it me? Do I have a problem?'”

Then, during her second semester of nursing school, she reconnected with Wissmann. “I was a little slower, but over time, his character, his coming back and his love for me no matter what,” she says. “I know we have a big, crazy family and we still have to put up with a lot of things. I think to myself, my goodness, there aren’t many people who do that. He must really, genuinely care about me.”

The path to marriage, she adds, “looks different for everyone.”

“I know I prayed about it for years and yes, I definitely thought, ‘What’s going on? Why can’t I just…’ Most of my siblings got married in their early 20s,” Jana says, noting that she is by far “the oldest” of her siblings to get married.

And although she says the journey was “daunting at times,” it also had its good sides.

“I was able to connect with so many of my siblings or friends or do things that a lot of married people couldn’t do because they married young,” she says. “I tried to look at the positive, but you long for that person, someone to spend your life with. It was hard, but it was good and God taught me a lot along the way.”

Jana adds: “I haven’t always understood what the big picture is, but I know that God knows what’s best for all of us. And for me, that means marrying later,” she says. “Each of our stories is written differently. If we were all exactly the same, it would be a boring life. That’s why I love how God orchestrates it.”

Now the newlyweds are looking forward to starting the next chapter of their life together by moving to Nebraska.

“Just spending life with Stephen and being together,” says Jana. “It was challenging being in a long-distance relationship, but I think just being together, having someone to be with every day. It’s a beautiful time that I’ve been hoping for and wanting for a long time.”