Inside Ree & Ladd Drummond’s 30th Anniversary Trip To Italy: Gelato, Vatican City & A New Suit For Ladd
Ree Drummond and her husband, Ladd Drummond, finally made it to Europe.
The Pioneer Woman star and her rancher husband traveled to Italy to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, a trip they’d talked about since they tied the knot in 1996. Ree shared photos from the first three days of the romantic getaway on Instagram and recapped the highlights on The Pioneer Woman blog.
“Ladd bought a suit here!!!” she wrote in one post as the couple wrapped up their time in Rome.
A Promise Three Decades in the Making
Ree explained on her blog that the couple had wanted to visit Italy ever since their wedding but kept putting it off while raising their five children: daughters Alex, 29, and Paige, 27, and sons Bryce, 24, Jamar, 23, and Todd, 22.
The couple, both 57, marked their 30th anniversary on Sept. 21 with an Instagram tribute. But they’d sealed the European getaway a year earlier. When they celebrated their 29th anniversary apart in 2025, Ree launched her QVC clothing line in Pennsylvania, and Ladd stayed at the family’s ranch in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, and she vowed they would make the trip happen.
“God willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll be somewhere in Europe for our 30th,” she wrote at the time.
Ree later revealed the pair had literally shaken on it, explaining that for nearly 30 years they had always found reasons not to go.
Rome, Vatican City & The Tiber
The couple’s itinerary was packed. They toured Vatican City, posing together at St. Peter’s Basilica, and visited Rome’s famous Spanish Steps. They also took a boat ride on the Tiber River.
Ree said she was proud of them for following through on their plans, though she admitted she was also a bit in disbelief that they had actually made it. She described parts of the trip as breathtaking and said she got teary-eyed during the getaway.
Pasta, Gelato & Plenty of Walking
Food was naturally a highlight for the Food Network star. After dinner one night, the couple went out for gelato. Ree noted that her husband stuck with just one flavor, chocolate, and joked that she would have matched however many scoops he ordered.
She also said all the walking around Rome helped her justify the pasta and gelato she was enjoying.
Love on the Ranch
Ree and Ladd met at a bar in her hometown of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and married on Sept. 21, 1996. Ree has previously said it was love at first sight, describing Ladd as completely different from anyone she had dated before.
The couple welcomed foster son Jamar into their family in 2019, and they became grandparents in December 2024, when Alex and her husband, Mauricio Scott, welcomed daughter Sofia.
Ree went on to build a media empire from her ranch life, launching The Pioneer Woman blog in 2006 before her Food Network show premiered in 2011. She released her latest cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: The Essential Recipes, in October 2025.
Leave a comment