Gretchen Rossi and Slade Smiley are celebrating 11 years of love!
In honor of their 11-year anniversary this week, the Real Housewives of Orange County alumna, 41, posted a loving tribute on Instagram, which included photos and videos of the couple and their daughter Skylar Gray, who turns 1 in July.
“You are the best part of me ❤️,” Rossi began her tribute. “Yesterday Slade & I celebrated 11yrs together! 🙌🏻 and it feels like just yesterday we fell in love.”
“God gave me one of the best gifts when he blessed me with this relationship & now our baby girl together. 🙏🏻,” Rossi continued.
Over the course of their relationship, Rossi and Smiley, 46, have been through highs and lows together — and their love has only deepened and strengthened as a result.
“We have been through it all together,” said Rossi, who also admitted, “many said it wouldn’t last, but here we are 11yrs later, more in love today then when we first started.”
“Thank you Slade for adoring me and cherishing me, and showing our baby girl how a woman should be treated by a man,” said the reality star. “You are such a wonderful father and incredible partner and the love of my life.😍I love you baby.”
The couple have known each other for over 20 years, been dating for more than a decade and have been engaged since she proposed back in 2013.
When it comes to actually walking down the aisle, the couple still want to get married, but isn’t in a rush.
“You know it’s so funny because I don’t think Slade and I have ever sat there and gone, ‘Do we want to be married, do we not?’ It’s never really been a question. I feel like we just right now, our relationship just works and it’s awesome. I think that we’ve always been like, ‘What and if the timing is right, absolutely we will get married.’ We actually had talked about it a lot more because when you do get pregnant and when you are in this position, it’s like I want the kid to be something [Slade] and us to both have the same last name. You know what I mean? You start thinking about all those things,” Rossi told PEOPLE in December 2018, when they revealed their pregnancy.
Explained Smiley, “After the engagement we definitely talked about what the wedding would look like, where it would take place and those details. And we’ve continued to talk about those things, but we also made a decision as a couple that for us, we’re together at this point because we want to be not because we feel like we have to be and a piece of paper’s not going to change that.
“But because of our age and where we are, focus on baby was No. 1 — we wanted to go forward with that journey, we didn’t want to wait for another couple years,” Rossi added. “This was our focus. And that’s where we’ve put it and I think that once we’re able to succeed here, have a healthy child, we’ll get settled in, and I’m sure that the conversation of next steps for us will continue.”
“We already have the vision, trust me,” said Smiley.
“I have the whole wedding planned out,” added Rossi.
She also noted that finances are a reason the couple, who got pregnant with Skylar after multiple rounds of IVF, has paused on wedding planning.
“But I think that, you know, a lot of people forget too that it’s very financially expensive, but there’s just a lot that you really do have to put 100 percent of your focus on something like this for it to be successful. Weddings are expensive and IVF is very expensive, so we just decided right now that this stage of our life that it was the more responsible thing to do was to focus on this. And then yes, I think for sure that there will be a day that we go, ‘Okay, we’re so ready to do all this.’ I mean listen, I already have my three dresses designed,” said Rossi.
Still, Rossi is looking forward to the day when the two tie the knot.
“I definitely think there will be a day when we have the wedding we want,” she shared.
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