Ree Drummond practically fell into the role of America's sweetheart — at least, in the world of cooking. Back in 2006, she started her own blog called The Pioneer Woman. With time, she built up a fan base. Pretty soon, she dabbled in the world of television. Now she's one of the biggest stars of the Food Network.
And that means that fans are also quite familiar with Ree's family. Ree and her husband Ladd have four children — Alex Drummond, Paige Drummond, Bryce Drummond, and Todd Drummond. Alex, the oldest daughter, just surprised her family with some big news. She's accepted the marriage proposal of her college sweetheart, so a wedding is in the works. Good thing that Ree probably knows a few incredible caterers.
Alex is 23 and has been attached to her fiancé, Mauricio Scott, for some time. She announced the big news on Instagram, and her mom couldn't be more proud.
"Still waiting for someone to pinch me??!?!" Alex wrote online. "Mauricio Scott is the sweetest picture of God's goodness and provision. And I get to spend FOREVER with him!!" she said. "I love you, fiancé!!!!!!!"
Alex and her husband-to-be met at Texas A&M University. She's also a big fan of food and — according to Ree's official website — actually posed with a bag of chips and some queso for her senior photos. That proves she's definitely dedicated to snacking.
According to The Netline, Alex hasn't appeared on her mom's show quite as much as her siblings. But that could be due to age and location. Despite having a lot of fans, Alex is currently working as an associate consultant for a management agency located in Dallas, Texas.
The two started dating in 2018 — and Ree actually had some issues with it. For quite some time, she referred to Mauricio not as her daughter's "boyfriend" but as her longtime "friend." But that has nothing to do with Mauricio, whom she seemed to really like right off the bat.
It's more or less because she's sad to see her daughters officially grow up — and also can't stand the word itself. "I can't say the word 'boyfriend' as it relates to my girls. It just won't come out of my mouth. It isn't so much that I'm in denial or afraid to face the fact that my girls are growing up – it's more of an Elaine Benes thing," she wrote on Instagram.
"Did you see the episode of Seinfeld when the girl at the party kept mentioning her 'fiancé' constantly? ('My fiancé said this' and 'My fiancé said that' and 'Have you seen my fiancé???')," she explained. "That's how I feel about the word 'boyfriend.'"
Despite having her family in the spotlight, Alex isn't afraid to live her life the way she chooses. For example, when she was 21, she caught some criticism after she posted a photo on Instagram where she's drinking a lot of beer. "0/10 would recommend chugging 4 beers!!" she wrote as a caption.
Some fans had a hard time grasping her decisions as a grown-up. "They grew up around alcohol all their life, if you watch the show," one fan wrote. "It is either cooked with or made special drinks out of. I do not personally approve and I pray she realizes what Scripture says about being drunk."
But Mauricio seems to have been supporting her every step of the way in college. Unlike Alex, Mauricio is reportedly from Texas originally. Distractify writes that he graduated from college in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in industrial distribution from Texas A&M, and he was once a sales intern for PepsiCo.
It's possible that Ree approved of him from the start since her own relationship with her husband, Ladd, also started with them attached at the hip — well, sort of, after one four-month hurdle. She wrote out her love story in a piece for Country Living and was roughly around the same age as daughter Alex when she knew she was in love. She had a glass of wine in front of her before locking eyes with Ladd for the first time.
"He was tall, strong and mysterious, sipping bottled beer and wearing jeans and cowboy boots. And his hair. The stallion's hair was very short and silvery gray — much too gray for how young his face was, but just gray enough to send me through the roof with all sorts of fantasies of Cary Grant in North by Northwest," Ree wrote. "Gracious, he was a vision, this Marlboro Man-esque character across the room. After a few minutes of staring, I inhaled deeply, then stood up."
"He was a fourth-generation cattle rancher whose property was more than an hour away," she continued. "But I knew none of this as I stood before him, trying my best not to look too gazingly into his ice blue-green eyes or, worse, drool all over him. Before I knew it, two hours had passed. We talked into the night."
Nothing happened after that night, but Ladd made a point to call her literally four months after the fact. She had almost forgotten about him but decided to go ahead and accept his invitation to get dinner. "We talked about my childhood on a golf course, about his upbringing in the country. About my lifelong commitment to ballet; about his passion for football. About L.A. and celebrities; cowboys and agriculture. At the end of the evening, riding in a Ford F-250 diesel pickup with a cowboy, I knew there was nowhere else on earth I wanted to be," she penned.
One thing Ree can pass onto Alex? Her secrets for a successful marriage. After all, she's been lovingly married to Ladd for 24 years. The two got married in 1996 and still seem to be very much in love, just like at their first actual date. "Ladd and I always wind up together on the couch in the evenings, no matter how busy we've been throughout the day," Ree explained on her site. "We both have a soft spot for old Westerns, any of The Godfather movies and '80s flicks."
In short, they spend time together — even if it's doing something like watching television on the couch. Based on what they've shared, it seems like Alex and Mauricio are in it for the long run. Congratulations to Alex and Mauricio for finding love and making it official.
