It’s a story that’s going viral after Ashley shared a video on TikTok chronicling her and Luke’s sweet love story. The clip features photos and footage of Ashley and Luke going back nearly 30 years. In one image, Toni is seen holding a newborn Luke at the hospital.
Ashley and Luke, now both 29, weren’t childhood sweethearts. In fact, Ashley jokes that a romance would have been “incestuous.”
“We viewed each other like siblings,” Ashley says. “Our families traveled together and spent holidays together. I considered Luke’s sisters my sisters.”
“She was my built-in best friend,” Luke tells adds. Luke notes that while his feelings for Ashley were platonic, he always considered her “the prettiest girl at school.”
It wasn’t until Luke and Ashley went their separate ways for college — she stayed in Florida, he headed off to Alabama — that their relationship began to shift. Ashley found herself scouring Luke’s social media for signs of a love interest, and Luke found himself comparing other girls to Ashley.
“That’s when I sort of realized that Ashley was the one I wanted to be with. She was the gold standard,” Luke says.
In 2016, Luke, then a junior at the University of Auburn, confessed his feelings to Ashley. He was certain they were meant to be together, but she was terrified about what could happen if things didn’t work out.
“We had to consider our families,” Ashley says. But she also had to consider the butterflies in her stomach.
“I was falling for him,” she says.
The realization came as a surprise to Ashley — but not moms Beth and Toni. Beth noticed a spark when Luke was visiting Ashley over a school break.
“The way they greeted each other was just totally different than normal,” Beth says. “She actually jumped into his arms.”
“We were meant to be,” Ashley says.
Luke proposed in 2019, and the following year, the Wells and the Thomases officially became family.
“It’s so funny because our sisters used to stage mock weddings. They’d put Luke in a tuxedo and make us kiss,” Ashley says, with a laugh. “They wished it into existence!”
Ashley, who is 19 weeks pregnant with a girl, teases that her mother-in-law manifested a grandchild.
“She was asking like every week, ‘Are you having a baby soon?’” Ashley says.
Now Ashley and Luke will become parents together, another adventure for the two best friends.
Ashley says, “We’ve walked through every stage of life together.”
