Ian Munsick and Lainey Wilson have been colleagues and friends for years now, so you can bet the singer and his wife, Caroline, were front and center when Wilson met her now-fiancé, Devlin Hodges.
During an interview with Taste of Country to discuss his new album, Eagle Father, Munsick recalled the night he met Hodges. At the time, he was having a party to celebrate his first studio album, 2021’s Coyote Cry. He held the event at the iconic Silverados bar in Tennessee, a spot known for its $1 beers.
“Lainey came out to the bar with our pals,” he remembers. “She had been talking to this guy, but had never gone on a date.”
That guy was Devlin — or Duck, as he’s better known.
Munsick, his wife and their friends were very eager to meet Duck, so he encouraged Wilson to bring him along to the party. They wanted to vet him, as friends do, to make sure he was top-tier for Lainey.
“We’re all here, we can all judge him at the same time,” Munsick says, laughing as he thinks back.
A former pro-athlete, Hodges wasn’t hard to spot when he walked in.
“He comes walking through the door, and he’s a bigger guy, like he used to play pro-football,” Munsick says. “So he’s a stud.”
He joked that Hodges’ professional career won the men over immediately, while the women asked the deeper questions. Collectively, all of Wilson’s judgmental friends loved the way that Hodges was completely himself, even though he was a fish out of water.
“About five minutes in, he had a Coors Light and asked Lainey to go out on the dance floor,” Munsick says. “Right there is when we knew they had a special future ahead.”
Wilson and Hodges wouldn’t go official publicly until the 2023 ACM Awards red carpet. They got engaged in February 2025, and Munsick jokes that he has the best idea when it comes to a wedding gift.
“One more evening at the dive bar that she had her first official date with her fiancé,” he declares.
Munsick’s third album is out now, including a song featuring Wilson. “Feather in My Hat” is the duet — it’s one of two collabs on his new album.
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Gallery Credit: Billy Dukes
