‘American Idol’ Finalists Gabby Barrett and Cade Foehner Are Engaged
Congratulations to the happy couple!
American Idol has long made dreams come true since its start in 2002, turning hopeful singers into massive worldwide superstars. But in its most recent season, it helped create a love story for the ages between finalists Gabby Barrett and Cade Foehner.
The couple, who placed third and fifth during Idol’s inaugural season on ABC, are engaged!
It was during a trip to Los Angeles to meet with a pastor for a pre-marital session that the couple realized they were staying in the same hotel they’d met a year earlier during their Idol audition process.
“The hotel we were staying at while we were there was the same one me and Cade met and hung out in for the first time during Idol,” Barrett, 19, shared with PEOPLE. “So I told Cade we have to go back and check out the room and he agreed.”
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Foehner has a nice RING to it… 💍💕
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Accompanied by a photographer friend who’d asked the couple to pose in the room they’d met in for their portfolio, the couple revisited the past and shared in a sweet intimate moment together.
“She started taking the pictures and then she said, ‘Hold on I need to switch lenses.’ Cade start saying all these sweet things and I didn’t think anything of it because he normally does it all the time,” recalled Barrett. “But I noticed he kept going on and on and then he eventually said, ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’ Then he got down on one knee and he asked and I said, ‘Yes!’”
Foehner had been planning to propose for awhile, but after realizing they’d be seeing the place where they first met, he had his sister overnight the ring to their church in order to pull of the surprise of a lifetime.
“I’ve been thinking about proposing for quite a while. It’s getting harder and harder to be apart. Doing all the traveling we have to do, sometimes we have to go a month without seeing each other. That’s a little much for me, so I decided to go ahead and do this thing!,” said Foehner, 22.
While the couple knows that people may say they’re too young to be married, the have no doubts in the strong foundation they’ve built together over the past year.
“Her love for God — that rocked my world from the start,” said Foehner. “Her humility and who she is as a woman is wrapped up in her beliefs in God. Having that pushes you to want to be humble and want to live a life like Christ. She’s absolutely captivating. I’ve known for quite a while that I want to spend my life with her. I could literally stare in her eyes for a million years and could not get tired of that.”
He continued, “What’s the sense in sitting around and waiting around to be married? I’m ready to do this thing and when I’m 80 years old I’m going to look back at the time I wasted not being her husband.”
As for whether or not the couple would invite Idol judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie to their nuptials, the answer was another resounding “yes!”
“The judges are like family to us,” said Barrett. “Idol was the very beginning of our love story and we would love for all of our family to be there.”
Barrett has been hard at work on her country career, releasing her first single, “I Hope” to country radio. American Idol is back for a second season on ABC airing non Sundays at 8/7c.
