Bachelor Nation alum Carly Waddell has found her “dream man” in boyfriend Todd Allen Tressler — and they’re now engaged.
“A little thing happened in Costa Rica 💍,” Waddell, 39, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, October 17. “Many of y’all have been wondering why Todd wears a ring on his hand and it is actually because I asked him last Halloween to marry me first!”
She added, “SPOILER ALERT, he said yes, even though to be honest he was so shocked it was hard for him to be! Then, also SPOILER ALERT he asked me THIS October and I also said YES!!!!”
Tressler, an attorney, ultimately picked out a custom two-stone ring from James Allen and surprised Waddell with the design when he popped the question.
“I didn’t see the final product until he was down on his knee. It’s more beautiful than I could have ever imagined it to be,” she gushed. “Here’s to a new chapter with my dream man, and then dream ring he put on my left hand ❤️.”
During a family vacation with Waddell’s children, Bella, 5, and Charlie, 3, the lawyer pretended to take a photo at sunset. While Waddell, Bella and Charlie were facing the skyline, Tressler stood behind them and got down on one knee. When Waddell spun back around, she smiled and kissed her new fiancé.
Waddell and Tressler went Instagram official in March. It is her first relationship since she and ex-husband Evan Bass split in 2020.
“I have this fantasy that one day I’m just gonna be out walking around and I’m gonna meet this, like, wonderful man and he is just going to wow me,” Waddell previously told Us Weekly exclusively in May 2023. “That’s in my brain. I’m manifesting that for myself.”
At the time, Waddell wasn’t ready to meet someone new, but by July 2023, she slid into Tressler’s DMs after an in-person missed connection.
“He told me he was old school and would love to call me sometime,” Waddell wrote via Instagram in March. “I asked him out in the most awkward voice text ever that I thought would never send and then it [accidentally] did. He laughed and accepted.”
Waddell also referred to her first date with Tressler as “magic.”
Waddell and Bass, who shares three older sons with past partners, continue to coparent Bella and Charlie. The Bachelorette alum, 41, has also moved on, debuting his romance with Kristen Rodgers in June 2023.