Who is Ree Drummond’s husband? All about Ladd Drummond

Ree Drummond and her husband Ladd Drummond have been married for greater than 1 / 4 century, and so they’re nonetheless proving their mettle.

In honor of her husband on their twenty-fifth marriage ceremony anniversary in 2021, Pioneer lady The star penned a loving tribute to her husband.

“It has been a wild journey, and we have skilled joys, pains, ups, downs, triumphs, sorrows, surprising twists and turns. (And infants! 🤓),” she captioned a part of the put up. “This complete love — a love that deepens and expands and turns into extra deeply rooted over time — undoubtedly exists.”

Over the course of their almost three-decade marriage, the 2 completed so much, together with elevating 5 kids, and every had profitable careers — usually in entrance of the cameras. Rey credit their shared religion as the important thing to a thriving marriage.

“It is not the reply for everybody, however we go to church collectively each Sunday,” she instructed PEOPLE in an unique cowl story in 2017. “It is one thing we do it doesn’t matter what occurs. Irrespective of how drained we’re. I’ve seen occasions after we’ve strayed from that, and catastrophe has been lurking within the bush.

So who’s Ladd Drummond? Here is all the things it’s worthwhile to learn about Ree Drummond’s husband.

He met his spouse in a bar

In between shifting from Los Angeles to Chicago, Rey returned residence for a couple of months to Bartlesville, Oklahoma. She attached with a few of her childhood buddies for an evening at a neighborhood dive bar round Christmas, and that is when she first noticed the Wrangler-wearing cowboy throughout the bar.

As he sipped his beer, it was his arms that caught Rey’s consideration. “They have been large and powerful,” she shared on her weblog, The Pioneer Lady. Then they talked and I felt an immediate connection.

Rei thought she would by no means see him once more after assembly him

After what I believed was an excellent dialog, Ladd didn’t name Bree within the following days. She summarized in her weblog that she was getting ready to begin her new life within the Windy Metropolis 4 months later when a name got here from Ladd.

He took her out to dinner the subsequent night, and the couple kissed on her mother and father’ entrance porch because the evening ended. Issues progressed shortly after that, with Ladd saying “I really like you” two weeks later whereas at his farm.

“He was so totally different from all of the boys I used to be loopy about,” Rey instructed PEOPLE in 2017. “I do not imply to make it sound like Maria and Tony in West Aspect Story, however I used to be sort of like them.” , ‘Oh boy!’ “My knees have been weak.”

The pair acquired engaged a 12 months and a half later.

They married in 1996

On September 21, 1996, the couple married in an Episcopal church ceremony.

Ree shared with The Pioneer Lady that two memorable moments from their large day have been when her brother Mike acquired on stage and sang “Elvira,” adopted by Arizona State, Ladd’s alma mater, beating Nebraska, who have been two-time defending nationwide soccer champions in that the time.

“Ladd and his school buddies have been within the males’s locker room for nearly the complete reception to observe the sport. They have been so excited.

He’s a cattle breeder

Ladd is a multi-generational rancher on his household ranch, Drummond Land and Cattle Firm, which he owns along with his brother Tim. Headquartered in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, the farm was handed down from their father, Chuck.

Citing data, PEOPLE reported in a 2017 cowl story that the Drummond household was one of many 20 largest landowning households within the nation, with a complete space of ​​400,000 acres.

He and Rey have 5 kids collectively

Ray Ladd has 5 kids – daughters Alex and Paige, sons Bryce and Todd, and adopted son Jamar.

The children grew up round Meals Community cameras, giving viewers a glimpse into their lives, together with engaged on the household farm.

“I actually commend Ladd and the farm for preserving youngsters on the land,” Ree instructed PEOPLE in 2017. “They admire the chance to be on TV, however they do not search for it or get enthusiastic about it. It would not matter if the crew is right here or not, the identical work has to go on.”

Now an empty nester, Ree can usually be seen taking her kids’s place, giving Ladd a serving to hand.

“Youngsters please come again, Daddy is making me go to work with him now,” she as soon as captioned a photograph of herself with Ladd, including the hashtags “#emptynest #nofilter #yesterday’smascara #okaybye.”

He and Ray raised their kids in Ladd’s childhood residence

Ray and Ladd raised their kids in the home the place Ladd had grown up on their farm.

The home, which was almost half a century previous, wanted in depth repairs, which finally led to the Drummond household shifting out.

“It wasn’t a glamorous 50-year-old residence. We beloved elevating our youngsters in the home, nevertheless it had basis issues and developed some points that have been very tough to repair,” Rhee beforehand instructed PEOPLE.

Nicknamed “Marlboro Man”

Through the years, Ree has affectionately and publicly referred to her husband as “The Marlboro Man” — a nickname that originated from one in every of her shut buddies.

“Years in the past, when my finest buddy Hyacinth had her third little one, I organized a reception for her and invited a bunch of people that had by no means come to my home earlier than,” she instructed The Pioneer Lady. Because the friends have been arriving, I heard one in every of them, Carla Brown, say, “Oh my God, who’s the Marlboro Man sitting on the porch?” ”

Whereas growing her weblog years later, she wrote about her husband below that pseudonym.

“On the time, I believed you need to by no means reveal your actual identify on the Web, so I simply referred to Ladd because the Marlboro Man.”

He had an accident whereas preventing an enormous fireplace

In March 2021, Ladd and his nephew Caleb have been responding to a hearth close to their household farm, every driving a Himmat fireplace truck.

Caleb was driving south whereas Ladd was driving north. In response to an Oklahoma Freeway Patrol report, the 2 vans collided “head-on” because of “excessive winds on a gravel highway” leading to decreased visibility.

Neither of them was carrying a seat belt, and Caleb was ejected from the truck, sustaining head, arm, and leg accidents and inner accidents, the report famous. Ladd denied medical remedy on the scene.

“This was partly as a result of he needed the paramedics to give attention to Caleb, partly as a result of he was nonetheless a little bit distraught from the accident, and partly as a result of cowboys don’t wish to admit after they get damage,” Ree later wrote on her weblog. “After Caleb’s ambulance left, Ladd drove himself to the hospital in Pawhuska, pondering he could be examined calmly.”

Ladd broke his neck in two locations and was taken to a Tulsa hospital for surgical procedure.

“For each Caleb and Ladd to be high quality — injured, sure, however repairable — after seeing the situation of their vans makes me not need to spend a single second complaining. I can not even be mad at Ladd for driving himself to the hospital with a damaged neck. Rey wrote: “I am so completely happy to be residence with him.”

He and his spouse personal a number of companies of their hometown

Along with tending to their sprawling farm, the couple additionally owns a number of companies of their hometown.

In 2016, Ladd and Rey opened a bakery, restaurant and retail retailer known as The Pioneer Lady Mercantile – dubbed “The Merc.”

“After I think about placing a plate of my meals in entrance of a buyer or a visitor, it actually takes it to an entire different degree as a result of I need them to really feel like their journey right here was price it,” Ree beforehand shared with PEOPLE.

She added that she actually believes within the challenge and is working exhausting to verify it lives as much as expectations. “It is a part of our souls at this level.”

Situated three doorways down from The Mercantile, the couple additionally personal an eight-bedroom resort known as Boarding Home, which opened its doorways in 2018.

Every room has a novel theme – the Boudoir, Butterfly Room, Apothecary Room, Emerald Room, Image Room, Prairie Room, Farmhouse Room, and Vainness Room, all embellished accordingly.

Whereas Drummond had a hand in creating the room service menu to incorporate classics like biscuits and gravy, Ladd took the lead on renovating the three-story, Twenties constructing.

“I had nearly nothing to do with it apart from ‘Aww, neat!’” Ree wrote on her weblog. “The good thing about my contributions can’t be understated.”

The Drummonds additionally personal P-City Pizza — a pizzeria joint established in 2018, the place they sometimes spend date evening — in addition to Charlie’s Candy Store, an ice cream and dessert store that opened in 2019 in reminiscence of their Basset Hound, Charlie. The couple additionally opened The Lodge — the situation the place Ree movies her present — to the general public, due to Ladd.

“The inn is situated 18 miles out of city on an unpaved highway. “I believed somebody was going to get a flat tire,” she shared in her weblog. “However Ladd famous that individuals come to Pawhuska to go to our retailer and restaurant. He needed to increase their expertise.”

He inspired his spouse to begin her weblog

Whereas elevating his household on the farm within the mid-2000s, Ladd inspired his spouse to begin a weblog by taking the children off her arms for a couple of hours so she may spend time writing. It was launched in 2006, and Ree noticed it as a strategy to keep in contact together with her mom, who lives in Tennessee.

The weblog, which chronicled her life on the farm, took off and finally advanced into publishing recipes and way of life suggestions. By 2011, her weblog was amassing 23 million web page views per thirty days.

This launched her profession, increasing right into a TV present of the identical identify in 2011 on the Meals Community, and increasing to incorporate cookbooks, kids’s books, a way of life journal, and a homewares and clothes line, to call a couple of.

“The look of our marriage is that it’s totally conventional,” she beforehand instructed PEOPLE. “However in some ways, (it is) not conventional in any respect.”