The Bachelorette alum Blake Horstmann has announced he's engaged to Love Is Blind alum Giannina Gibelli.
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"So I can kiss you anytime I want," Blake captioned his post, quoting a line from the movie Sweet Home Alabama.
Blake proposed marriage to Giannina with a 4.87-carat oval lab-grown diamond ring at sunset in Parque del Retiro in Madrid, Spain, People reported.
"I had been looking for the perfect ring for over a year," Blake explained to the magazine.
"I had an idea of what she wanted -- cut, clarity, etc. -- but I didn't want to go and pick out a ring with her. I really wanted the ring to be a complete surprise."
Blake said Giannina was so surprised by his marriage proposal that she "actually said 'yes' before" he could even open the box to show her the ring.
"When she did finally see [the ring], she was breathless and so happy, so that felt really amazing," Blake gushed, adding, "We are over the moon and we can't wait to be married in front of our loved ones."
Giannina, for her part, described the sweet moment as "the best feeling in the world."
"Our love story has been everything I've always dreamt it would be and more," she told People.
"As soon as I met Blake, I knew he was my soul mate and I know the universe was always leading me to him. Being together forever and creating our family is literally the joy of my life."
Blake and Giannina welcomed their first child together in early April.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW"His first breath took ours away. Meet Heath Orion Horstmann born on Good Friday 3/29/24," the couple wrote on Instagram at the time.
The pair added, "Everyone is home happy and healthy -- his pregnancy and birth were a dream come true. Our lives are brighter, fuller, and forever better. Thank you for all of the love and well wishes, Heath has so many people who love him. We're parents!"
Blake also commented on the post, "Best day of my life."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)
Giannina called Heath his "father's twin" during an interview with Us Weekly earlier this year.
"There are so many similarities it's adorable to see them light up in each other. As far as personality goes, he's an Aries like his mama so we'll see, he just might be the perfect mix of both of us," Giannina said.
She added how delivering her baby was "the coolest, most empowering and most badass thing" she's ever done in her entire life.
Giannina gushed about how she actually "enjoyed the act of giving birth," adding, "You're conditioned to think it's this scary thing, but even during the hardest parts I had the biggest smile on my face, I literally couldn't hide how happy it made me."
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"I couldn't have asked for a better partner, it was beautiful to witness," she gushed.
Blake and Giannina announced they were expecting their first child together in November 2023.
"First comes love, then comes baby H," the couple wrote in a joint statement via Instagram at the time.
"We're so grateful that life has led us here and over the moon to be parents to our sweet baby come spring 2024!
Blake asked Giannina to move in with him in Denver, CO, in November 2022.
Blake and Giannina went Instagram official in early April 2022 while they were on a trip to Spain, several months after reports began to swirl about the couple dating.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)
Blake and Giannina -- who called Blake her "worst kept secret" in June -- had to keep their relationship, which began in late 2021, under wraps for a while because they had met on a Paramount+ reality show called All Star Shore, which filmed in December 2021 and didn't premiere until June 2022.
When a fan asked Giannina about Blake in March 2022, Giannina responded, "I can't officially post him [right now], because we did a project together that hasn't been announced yet," Page Six reported.
She added at the time, however, that she was "really happy to be sharing these moments" with Blake "in private."
Reports Blake -- who finished The Bachelorette's eleventh season starring Becca Kufrin as the runner-up and failed to find lasting love on Bachelor in Paradise -- and Giannina, who appeared on Love is Blind in 2020, were dating first surfaced in January 2022.
"They're taking things slow. But [they] seem really happy together," a source told People at the time.
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The pair chose to stay together and continue dating, but then Giannina announced in August 2021 she and Damian had split.
"I am officially single. Me and Damian haven't been dating for a couple of months now," Giannina told Entertainment Tonight at the time.
As for Blake, his breakup with Becca on The Bachelorette finale in August 2018 was excruciating to watch considering Blake had said he was madly in love with the show's leading lady.
Blake was admittedly "blindsided" by Becca's decision to dump him because he appeared to be her frontrunner all season long.
"I truly thought that if it came down to me proposing, that she wouldn't say no," Blake told ET in 2018. "I thought what we had was real."
Blake added it was "incredibly hard" to get over his heartbreak at first.
After appearing on Becca's The Bachelorette season, Blake had flings with The Bachelor alums Caelynn Miller-Keyes and Kristina Schulman.
Blake then appeared on Bachelor in Paradise's sixth edition and came across like a playboy.
He was romantically interested in Hannah Godwin on the ABC spinoff, but she chose to pursue a relationship with Dylan Barbour instead.
Blake said on Instagram in Summer 2021 that he has no interest in appearing on the franchise again for the sake of his mental health because he believes the franchise "breeds toxicity and emotional abuse."
Blake led Bachelor Nation to believe he and Becca were getting back together in 2021, but Becca denied that was the case and chose to look for love on Season 7 of Bachelor in Paradise that summer.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
