When Luke Combs and his now-fiancée Nicole Hocking fell in love, it was long before Luke became one of the reigning superstars in country music. Nicole knew Luke through her job at BMI, although it took an out-of-state trip for sparks to start to fly between the two.

“We were down in Florida for a songwriter’s festival,” Nicole said on the Couple Things podcast. “We were both single. I was leaving a songwriters’ round and he was walking up late to it, and he was by himself. I was like, ’Come hang out with us.'”

Luke happily obliged, although he admits he was definitely not dressed to impress.

“I looked bad, too,” he recalled. “I was wearing camo gym shorts from Walmart. Classy stuff. And the oldest t-shirt that I owned, probably.”

Nicole clearly didn’t mind what Luke was wearing, and she soon realized she was falling for the singer-songwriter.

“We started hanging out after that,” Nicole recalled. “We hung out a couple nights, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna get to know this guy.’ We just kind of started talking from there.'”

Luke and Nicole were only dating about four months when he wrote “Beautiful Crazy” about her. He knew early on that he wanted to propose to her, although the night he finally popped the question didn’t go exactly as he planned. The North Carolina native decided ask Nicole to marry him the night they moved into their new house together, but when both of their cats got sick, he had to make a quick change.

“He was like, ‘I got these collars for the cats, new collars with the new address on it, and I also got you this,’” Nicole recounted. “He pulls [the ring] out, gets down on one knee, does the whole thing. I black out, I don’t remember this. And I was just like, ‘My ears are hot. What’s going on?’

“That’s what she said,” Luke continued. “My ears are hot.”

Luke and Nicole plan to tie the knot later this year. A specific date has yet to be announced.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock / Kathy Hutchins