Jourdan Sloane and Wells Childress met in what they now jokingly refer to as the \u201cold-fashioned way\u201d\u2014on Raya. \u201cIt turns out it\u2019s really hard to meet people organically these days,\u201d Jourdan, who is a fashion influencer and model, notes. \u201cWe matched, and I thought, \u2018Wells?! That\u2019s a cool name.\u2019\u201d Wells, who is the founder of Banyan Motors\u2014a company that specializes in restoring classic, vintage German cars\u2014got her number immediately and invited her to be his guest for his best friend\u2019s wedding.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, flights were unrealistic, so we settled for a first date at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel,\u201d Jourdan explains. \u201cI showed up, and he stood to greet me, and I said, \u2018Wow, you are so tall.\u2019 He was probably the first guy ever to not lie about his height online.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two talked for hours that night, and it was easy for Jourdan to say yes to a second date. After that, they spent every single day together. \u201cIt just felt right,\u201d Jourdan says. \u201cWe both had flexibility in our schedules with work as we are both entrepreneurs, so we began traveling together nonstop. We were inseparable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple eventually got engaged during one of their trips. They were in India for a friend\u2019s wedding and to celebrate Wells\u2019s birthday when he asked her to marry him on November 24, 2024. \u201cHe completely surprised me,\u201d Jourdan remembers. \u201cAfter the five-day wedding celebration, we retreated to the Amanbagh, one of our bucket list hotels, to relax for a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n
On their second day at the hotel, Wells disappeared for a bit to go to the front desk to \u201cask about activities.\u201d Turns out, he was inquiring as to where he could propose that felt private and picturesque. \u201cThe concierge told him that there was a beautiful hike up to a lake that had unique wildlife that would be perfect,\u201d Jourdan explains. \u201cLater that afternoon, I put on my workout set, my hair in a bun, no makeup, and cluelessly went on the hike. My phone died mid-hike, it was so buggy, and there was a guide awkwardly with us. Wells decided it wasn\u2019t very romantic, and aborted the mission.\u201d When the couple got back to their suite, Jourdan somehow didn\u2019t even see the flower petals covering the floor, the chocolate cake in the corner of the room, or the bucket of Champagne. \u201cThe hotel thought he had proposed during the hike,\u201d she recalls. \u201cInstead of looking around, I ran to plug in my phone, and when I turned around, there he was, down on one knee. A brilliant platinum pear solitaire in a box open in his hands. I absolutely blacked out. I then said yes and immediately started crying. I don\u2019t remember anything he said. It was just us, no cameras, raw, special, intimate. We celebrated the next day with a safari where we had the pleasure of seeing a tiger, a leopard, and lots of exciting wildlife. It was the best trip of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jourdan Sloane and Wells Childress met in what they now jokingly refer to as the \u201cold-fashioned way\u201d\u2014on Raya.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,32724],"class_list":["post-51012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-wedding-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}