Since Ryan Blaney won the 2023 Cup Series Championship, things have never been the same for the Ford pilot. and in a good way. Not so long ago, Blaney used to be known as a driver who could not get over the hump due to inconsistency, but now, he is the reigning Cup Series champion. Fittingly, Blaney decided to end the best year of his career with another blast. He got engaged during the offseason and the preparations for the marriage are running at full speed.
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And even though Blaney didn’t seem to have too many plans on his mind for his wedding, Gianna Tulio did. And Blaney, being the supportive partner that he is, agreed to whatever Tulio said.
“I try to just give her the reins on everything — just do it, like, you’ve got full control of this. But she wants to include me in a lot of it, which is fine,” he told Bob Pockrass. “But I usually just agree with her. She’s like, “What do you think about this?” And then I’ll just ask her “Well, what do you think?” And then I’ll just agree with whatever she says.”
The biggest challenge was booking the wedding venue. Thankfully, that is sorted. “That was a big part of it,” admitted the #12 driver. “And I’m learning how much work goes into wedding planning. It’s a lot. Picking the venue out was good. That took a lot of weight off our shoulders of Gianna and me.”
Ryan Blaney got engaged to Gianna Tulio during the offseason. He gave me his strategy on wedding planning: pic.twitter.com/UcHFcgifTF
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) March 7, 2024
Ryan Blaney on why so many drivers got engaged at the same time
Every season of racing is a grind. The drivers need to travel all over the country continuously every week, often staying away from their families and loved ones. It’s not like they can wake up one day and decide to not go to work. So they are hardly left with any time to do other important stuff, like in this case, to get married.
Pockrass wondered if drivers were comparing dates or something, alluding to Denny Hamlin and Daniel Suarez also announcing their engagements; perhaps they were exchanging notes and making sure that their weddings didn’t fall on the same day. Blaney said, “I haven’t talked to anybody about that. But there’s only limited days out of the year that we can do it like it’s either your off-weeks, which you’re probably not going to do it there.”
There’s another reason. “And then it’s the winter,” explained the Team Penske star. “We’re going the winter route just to make it a little bit more relaxed and enjoyable. And it sets a date for all my friends, too — Blaney‘s definitely got to do in the winter so we’ll keep our schedule clear there.”
For now, Blaney is fully focused on defending his Cup title.
