Mattie Selecman is getting married! The daughter of Alan Jackson announced on Instagram that she is engaged to Connor Smith, who proposed while they were on a beach trip, supposedly for his birthday.
“Well… came down for a beach week to celebrate my sweet man’s 30th birthday. Didn’t know we’d end up celebrating choosing the rest of our lives together!!” Selecman posted, along with a series of photos of the couple.
“Feeling overwhelmingly thankful, excited, and thrilled for this kind-of-surprise but so-fervently-prayed for ENGAGEMENT,” she added. “I love your playful spirit and your kind heart and your infectious-ness for life, Connor Smith. I cannot wait to be your wife and build a family with you! You are the biggest blessing in the dang cutest package. Love you baby.”
Selecman announced her relationship with Smith in April, after the two had already been dating for several months. The relationship comes after Selecman’s first husband, Ben, passed away in September of 2018, from injuries sustained in a fall on a boat dock in Florida.
“Six months ago today I met one of my best friend’s brother-in-law for happy hour with no expectations besides a little fun,” Selecman wrote at the time. “Well, four hours later, drinks turned to dinner, and from that day til now, he has been one surprise after another. I have believed, prayed, and claimed for three and a half years now that God would give me the chance to love someone with my whole heart again. Other dear widow friends assured me that my heart could heal and expand to love two people equally, though differently. And I hoped so desperately that would really be true.
“This man is more of an answer to prayer (mine and countless others!) than I sometimes think he even realizes,” she continued. “Beyond his playful, generous, childlike spirit (the kind that I always seem to fall for), he has this wonderfully tender heart that I didn’t even know I needed. Empathy, intentionality, and encouragement are his default mode, and not for a minute have I been anything but [100 percent] unapologetically myself. I couldn’t imagine anyone holding my losses and my dreams, my faults and my faithfulness, my sarcasm and my crazy competitiveness – shoot, every single part of who I am and what I’ve gone through – with such respect and appreciation and honor.”
Selecman poured her grief into her book, Lemons on Friday, released last year. In the book, the 32-year-old details her journey through grief after Ben’s sudden passing.
“When I lost my husband, the only way I really knew to process it was to write,” Selecman tells Everything Nash. “I grew up in a songwriting family and it came to a point where I thought that if this is cathartic for me, maybe hearing me talk about my grief and my faith and its role in that would be cathartic for somebody else.”
A wedding date has yet to be announced.