They’re the resident lovebirds on MKR, but Ash and Stacey reveal it wasn’t love at first sight — at least on Stacey’s part!
Chatting to host Pete Timbs on the podcast Story of Us, the pair recount the first time they met.
Stacey was visiting Byron Bay from Adelaide when she walked into the clothes shop Ash was working at.
The 27-year-old reveals that while there was an instant connection between the pair, she wasn’t a fan of his bushy beard.
“He was immediately put in the friend zone,” Stacey laughs.
“There’s beards and then there’s beards and this was a full hipster beard”
Despite living in different cities, the pair remained good friends.
But it wasn’t until Stacey was in town 5 years later that they finally had their first date at a coffee shop.
Stacey revealed that when Ash turned up without his beard, she saw him in a whole new light.
“He had a clean shave and I could see how attractive he was under that beard!” she said.
Ash was due to move to Bali the next day but as fate would have it, a deal with his business partner fell through.
Things moved quickly after that, with Ash flying to Melbourne where Stacey was living at the time.
Ash met Stacey’s mum on their second date and the pair agree that after that, they knew they were soulmates.
‘We were instantly in love,” Ash says.
Things moved quickly after that, with Stacey quitting her job and moving to Byron within 2 months.
“It was instant, it just felt so natural,” she reveals.
Just 10 months later, Ash proposed and the pair are now planning their September wedding.
The content creators share that while they’re no strangers to the spotlight, their fame has shot to a new level since appearing on My Kitchen Rules.
They even reveal that they recently had their first run-in with a paparazzi!
“We were all the way in Crescent Head in NSW and we saw that this car with Queensland plates had been following us for two days,” Ash recalls.
“We went down a backstreet to test the waters and it drove down the backstreet, reversed when it saw us, then drove back forward”
The pair revealed that they were so concerned that they went to the police station, where they confirmed the plates belonged to a paparazzi who had driven 5 hours down the coast to snap them!
We have a feeling this brush with fame is just the beginning for these photogenic sweethearts!
You can listen to Ash and Stacey’s interview on the Story of Us podcast here.
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