Four months after she was dumped on national television, former Bachelor contestant Melissa Rycroft is engaged! Find out who else got engaged in 2009. Rycroft's boyfriend, Tye Strickland proposed to the former Dancing With the Stars finalist in Dallas on Friday night. The star announced her engagement on ABC's Good Morning America Tuesday. "Sometimes the stars align and the clouds part and everything works out the way it should," she said. Rycroft also updated her Twitter page with the news: "Guess the secret's out…Thank you all so much for being so great and supportive!! We're soooo excited!" The newly engaged couple first celebrated with their parents over dinner at Brio. “He had the proposal all planned out in advance and completely surprised her," a source tells Usmagazine.com. "The dinner was a surprise as well. She's so proud of him for being able to pull it off without anyone finding out!†They then continued the party with 20 friends at Cretia's restaurant that night, a staffer from the eatery tells Us. "When they walked in, everybody stood up and clapped," the staffer says, adding that Rycroft looked "beaming happy." According to the staffer, the 26-year-old Texas native and Strickland toasted with champagne and stayed until the restaurant closed at 2 a.m.
See what Melissa Rycroft and all the stars wore to the 2009 Us Weekly Hollywood party.
Rycroft and her insurance agent beau began quietly dating shortly after she was proposed to and then unceremoniously dumped six weeks later by Jason Mesnick in March. "We've been really good friends, but the timing was never right," she told Us at the time. "With all this going on, he's my support system. It's funny how things happen." Check out DWTS members' amazing makeovers. Rycroft explained why they waited to announce their engagement. "Sorry we kept it a secret for a few days," she wrote on her Facebook page. "We kind of thought there were more important things going on throughout the weekend, and it would be rude to make our announcement during all that." No wedding date has been set. "They just want to enjoy their engagement for awhile," the source tells Us. "She couldn't be more thrilled." The engagement comes a week after Rycroft started her new job on ABC's Good Morning America. She will appear on the morning show eight to 10 times this summer. This past spring, when the former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader competed on DWTS (she came in third place behind champ Shawn Johnson and runner-up Gilles Marini), Strickland was a fixture in the live audience.
