“He was like: ‘I guess, OK.’ He was looking at me super odd,” Ivy explained during a call with the TRiiBE on Feb. 11.
“She grown as hell. Who leaves the club trying to get a snack?” Corey asked. “That’s not normal.”
Unknowingly, Ivy made an impression on Corey that night, she said. She and her friend left for food, and Corey — still at the door — let them back inside. Later that evening, he found her, and they started talking and exchanged numbers. They dated for three to four months and have been a couple since November 2015. Now both 35 years old, the couple lives together in the South Loop.
They would attend other Wale concerts throughout their relationship. For their engagement, a full-circle moment happened for the couple of six years.
Corey was planning to propose in late 2021 and found himself looking for inspiration. He found it in the engagement story of Ivy’s parents. At a Jackson 5 concert in Louisiana back in 1979, Ivy’s father proposed to her mother.
In January 2022, Wale was scheduled to be in Chicago for his Under a Blue Moon Tour at the House of Blues. Ivy had already purchased tickets.
That’s when the idea came to Corey to propose at the Wale concert. He wanted to pay homage to his future father-in-law but wanted to put his own spin on it by proposing to Ivy on stage surrounded by their friends and family during the concert.
“I’ve always wanted to curate like this 90s love story type vibe. I wanted to surprise her; I wanted it to be more than just [proposing in the crowd]. Like, that’s not me putting up enough effort. I felt like that was too easy. It was just me thinking, like, I’m just gonna have Wale do it.”
Corey knew he was two degrees of separation from Wale. One of his friends was close to Wale. So Corey made some calls during the 2021 holiday season, and Wale agreed to the on-stage proposal.