Carly Pearce on Falling for Michael Ray: ‘We Went From Hanging out One Night to Moving In’

When you know, you know, at least for Carly Pearce and Michael Ray. The couple went from being friends to living together in hardly any time at all — a decision that may seem hasty but made perfect sense to the couple.

“We literally went from hanging out one night to moving in,” Pearce recalled to Nashville Lifestyles. “It was a ‘when you know, you know’ kind of thing.”

Pearce was smitten with Ray for years, after they first met while with a group of friends, even if most of that affection was from afar.

“He doesn’t really remember meeting me but I remember thinking he was super hot,” Pearce said. “I was still working retail, so I remember being like, ‘Oh my God, who gets to date Michael Ray? He’s so hot.’”

Five years later, much had changed for Pearce, which allowed her to interact with Ray more, although it took him a while to get the hint that she had feelings for him.

“I got a record deal and started playing shows with him and just started thinking about him way too much,” Pearce said. “I didn’t even know him, so I direct messaged him on Instagram and started commenting on his stories and we kind of did that for a while. Then it turned into texting and then we hung out one night and that was it.”

That one night became a four-hour marathon of sharing stories, followed by a trip to the Nashville Palace, where they both quickly fell in love. But even now that they are married, there are still challenges to overcome, especially with both of them on the road so much.

“It’s hard,” Ray acknowledged. “There’s still hard times with traveling now. That’s just how it’s going to be for a family of one person that travels half as much as we do, so to have two people doing 140 days away a year, there are going to be those hard times. We made the decision in the beginning to over-communicate and say, ‘Hey this is just how it is.’

“I think we met that first night and we both left for two weeks the day after,” he added. “It kind of forces you to really get to know the person because you’re on the phone, and there’s no distraction.”

Photo Credit: Getty /Jeff Kravitz