The Voice‘s Billy Gilman is a married man! The NBC show’s Season 11 runner-up, 36, tied the knot with partner Anthony Carbone on Aug. 23, in a stunning ceremony held on a 45-acre horse farm in Gilman’s home state of Rhode Island.
The couple said “I do” surrounded by 115 guests with Gilman’s best friend of 20 years, Kim Bruna, officiating the ceremony, PEOPLE reports. After the ceremony, Gilman surprised his husband during the reception with a special song, and the newlyweds’ first dance was to “My Love” from the TV show Star.
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The “One Voice” singer and his new husband, 32, immediately “hit it off” when they first met through mutual friends at Providence bar the night before Thanksgiving in 2022. After their first meeting, Carbone told PEOPLE they “just kind of stayed in touch and life just kept bringing us together again and again.”
“[We’ve] been inseparable ever since, leading up to this one getting on his knee,” Gilman added. “I’m super grateful for our friends, that’s for sure. It’s just, when you know you know.” Carbone agreed that while he and Gilman had been in relationships before, this one was different, and the two “just really couldn’t be a day apart.”
“That was just such a deep part of my heart where not only is he the love of my life, but he became my best friend in that moment, and to me, that’s, I think, the basis of everything, and I think that’s how everything should start,” he continued. “I think that’s somewhere when the best relationships flourish the best.”
On Sept. 24, 2023, the couple got engaged following a Pam Tillis concert in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Carbone popped the question using two rings that he purchased as a “corny and sentimental” 18-year-old on a trip to Aruba with friends. He had always planned on using the rings when he found the “love of [his] life” one day, and the rings sat in a drawer for more than a decade until he popped the question to Gilman.ย
At the time, Gilman shared the story of his proposal on Instagram. “It was truly amazing until I walked to my car and Ant told me to stay outside (in the rain) for a second. He then proceeded to do something that will forever be ingrained in my mind and in my heart,” he wrote. “I cried. We cried. We called it forever and a day. I promise to be your lifeline, your worst and best critic, your best friend, and most of all your husband. I am truly speechless.”
