Just three months after publicly revealing their relationship, Married At First Sight Australia star Ryan Gallagher and Olympic gold medallist swimmer Emily Seebohm have announced they’re engaged!
“When you know, you know,” Ryan, 34, tells Woman’s Day from his farm outside Goulburn, New South Wales, three hours from Sydney, where he took Emily out to the dam and got down on one knee.
“I thought it was the right spot to do it – she loves the horses and she often swims in the dam,” he says.
“I did get nervous, though. The ring box was making a bit of a bulge in my pocket. So either she knew I was proposing or she just thought I was happy to see her!”
Emily, 30, says it was an immediate “big yes”, calling it a “really special, cute moment”.
She adds, “It definitely had a Ryan flair to it and it’s something I’ll cherish forever.”
Speaking of the sparkler, Ryan chose to go local, enlisting Goulburn’s Zantis Jewellers to make him a trilogy ring, with the two smaller diamonds symbolising Emily and himself, and the larger diamond in the middle symbolising their love.
“It’s a lot bigger than I initially thought,” Emily laughs. “But it’s perfect – I’m so happy.”
The pair say they’re planning an “intimate” wedding, most likely on the Gold Coast, “within the next year or two”, but they’re more excited about organising a “blowout” engagement party.
“You only get one of them, so why not?” Ryan enthuses. “Unless you’re [three-times- engaged Beauty And The Geek host] Sophie Monk and then you get nine!”
The pair met on Aussie reality show The Challenge last year and while Ryan knew he couldn’t get too close as Emily was in a relationship at the time, the pair’s connection was too strong to deny.
“We knew by the last week that we had feelings there,” Emily admits, adding that she “had to make a decision” for herself, making the difficult choice to end it with her boyfriend when she got home.
The couple make their own fun on Ryan’s remote family farm.
“Obviously it wasn’t a nice call to make, but I told him what was going on, that there was something there with Ryan and that I didn’t see the point in wasting any more time.”
From there, the pair decided to travel overseas to see if what they had would outlast the confines of a reality show – and it sure did!
“Nothing could really knock us down,” says Ryan. “Even travelling the States together, driving from New York to LA in three weeks. We just laugh through everything.”
Both Ryan and Emily have had a tumultuous history in the dating game.
Ryan was cheated on by his MAFS wife Davina Rankin in 2018, while Emily also endured a public break-up with swimming champ Mitch Larkin that same year, with Emily claiming he had cheated.
With MAFS bride Davina.
“We have a lot of experience with dating!” Emily laughs.
“We might even be experts in it,” Ryan quips, before adding he’s thrilled at the idea of raising some rugrats.
“We definitely want a big family,” he enthuses. “But we’ve got to find a house to make that a forever home first.”
