Rachel Deeb
Carly Pearce and Michael Ray are just like most newlyweds. They love cozy nights at home, grocery shopping together, and hitting up their favorite taco spot. They just happen to also be rising country stars.
While gearing up for their respective upcoming tours, the musical couple chatted with Nashville Lifestyles about life and love on the road, together time, and that magical proposal in Mexico.
Nashville Lifestyles: How did you meet?
Michael Ray: We met about five years ago through a group of friends in Nashville.
Carly Pearce: He doesn’t really remember meeting me but I remember thinking he was super hot. I was still working retail, so I remember being like, “Oh my God, who gets to date Michael Ray? He’s so hot.”
MR: Fast forward five years…
CP: I got a record deal and started playing shows with him and just started thinking about him way too much. I didn’t even know him, so I direct messaged him on Instagram and started commenting on his stories and we kind of did that for a while. Then it turned into texting and then we hung out one night and that was it.
MR: That was it.
NL: Carly, what made you fall in love with Michael?
CP: We were raised differently but also very similarly. We grew up valuing our grandparents so much. Our grandfathers were very big influences on us. We grew up singing in jams [sessions], and being the only child in those jams with a lot of elderly people. It was just very weird to meet somebody that loves country music and had exactly the kind of journey that I did, and who values their family the way that I valued my family. We had so many similarities and he just really is the most genuinely good-hearted person. He’s also really hilarious. He was so fun and I think as we continued to get to know each other and date he really helped me to come out of my shell and be a better person. I had never been with anybody that made me feel like that.
NL: Michael, what about you? How did you know Carly was the one?
MR: Honestly a lot of what she said was the same thing for me: Us being raised in two different places but literally doing the same exact thing. The way that she put her family first, a lot of the same values that I looked at for somebody that I wanted to be with, she checked all the boxes. I remember we sat in her kitchen for four hours just going back and forth like, “No way! Me too,” or “So did I,” or “You’ve got to be kidding me.” It was like I was the way more rowdy male version of her, and she was the Kentucky girl version of me. It was just very apparent that her heart was one of the biggest things that I got out of our first time hanging out. Doing what we do, it can change a lot of people and I felt like it didn’t change who she was at her core. That was a big thing for me.
NL: How long did you date before things got serious?
CP: We literally went from hanging out one night to moving in. It was a "when you know, you know" kind of thing.
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NL: How hard was it to grow that new relationship when you were both out on the road away from each other?
MR: It’s hard. There’s still hard times with traveling now. That’s just how it’s going to be for a family of one person that travels half as much as we do, so to have two people doing 140 days away a year, there are going to be those hard times. We made the decision in the beginning to overcommunicate and say, “Hey this is just how it is.” I think we met that first night and we both left for two weeks the day after. It kind of forces you to really get to know the person because you’re on the phone, and there’s no distraction. You’re not…
CP: You’re not making out. [laughs]
MR: You know what I mean. [laughs] It was like an old-school courtship.
CP: [Being in the same field] makes it easier. He can say, “I’m going to do this with radio,” and I know what that means. It’s like we speak the same language.
NL: Michael proposed on December 19, 2018, on a roof deck adorned with massive white floral arrangements, tiki torches and candles, and a private table for two. Michael, when did you start planning that?
MR: Probably October of that year. We had the trip planned with her mom and dad before the holidays. I asked her parents at Thanksgiving and told them the plans. I thought it would be cool if her mom helped me do the whole thing, so her mom and I tackled it together for the month of November—we had about three and a half weeks to plan all of it. My mind starts going crazy whenever I want to do something for somebody: “We can do this or we can do this. We can have a mariachi band!” Her mom helped wrangle my wild thoughts and it ended up being like a movie. It was pretty awesome.
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NL: Carly, you were watching workers build the proposal site from your room. Did you have any idea it was for you?
CP: I knew that we were going to get married, yes. Did I know that [a proposal] was going to happen in Tulum? Absolutely not. I was on a flight two days prior with Runaway June and those girls made a bet that I was getting engaged in Tulum. Then I hung out the next morning with Kelsea [Ballerini] and Maren [Morris] and they were like, “You’re getting engaged in Tulum.” I was like, “No way!” Michael’s so romantic, but he’s also so one-of-a-kind in the way that he likes to do surprises and do things for people, so just proposing to me on a beach felt too predictable, and that was too predictable. [laughs] But renting out a balcony and an entire, what I thought was a wedding ceremony getting built at our hotel, and having a mariachi band, a special dinner, and a photographer…now that sounds more like Michael.
NL: When did you realize this was your proposal?
CP: I saw these rose petals winding from our doors down and I was like, “Whoa, maybe the wind blew those there.”
MR: Keep in mind, we’re on the top floor in the furthest corner from the stairs, so these flowers would have to have blown up three stories of stairs and about 50 yards to the right.
CP: The minute that I got to the bottom of the stairs and saw that the stairs were all lined with flowers...and keep in mind, from that balcony while I had been getting ready for dinner, I was watching what I thought was a wedding being built and he let me watch the whole thing and it actually was my proposal.
NL: You were married in Nashville on October 6 at Drakewood Farms. What was the day like?
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CP: We picked our venue strictly because of the outdoor space that we wanted to get married in, and it had been beautiful in Nashville leading up to literally the day of our wedding. I’m not talking about a little bit of rain. It poured from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. when we were supposed to get married.
MR: We ended a four-month drought.
CP: It was the most beautiful wedding. It ended up being so perfect inside in this barn with the rain falling. It was magical. I really don’t know how to explain it. It was like living in a dream. Sometimes I look back at photos and I can’t even believe it happened. It was amazing to have that many people in one room on both sides that loved us. I want to do it again.
MR: She was beautiful and breathtaking, and the whole scene… I’m a big family guy. To see her walking down the aisle to me, to see my family, my dad, and everybody there really was pretty emotional.
NL: Now that you’re past the wedding planning and settled into your new lives together, what do you like to do in your downtime?
CP: We really like to go to Publix. [laughs] We like to go work out. We like to drink wine and grill out at home. We spend a lot of time out on the road, so we like to have dinner at home.
MR: We like to watch Netflix. And once in a while I try to pop up with some spontaneous idea to go do something. I have a Jeep that we like to ride in whenever it’s nice weather out.
NL: When you do go out, where do you like to go?
MR: Nashville Palace. We had our wedding after-party there.
CP: We like a little restaurant called Nectar. We like Barcelona. Once in a while if we’re celebrating we’ll go to Oak Steakhouse or Kayne Prime. And we love True Food Kitchen. I like to convince him that it’s a good day to go to the Green Hills Mall or go get our nails done and have a girls’ day.
MR: But that doesn’t happen.
CP: That does happen.
See Carly Pearce and Michael Ray on Thursday, March 5 at JW Marriott. Tickets and more information available on Eventbrite.