American Idol’s Garrett Jacobs is engaged to singer Callista Clark (exclusive)

Callista Clark and Garrett Jacobs talk about their love story.

The 20-year-old singer of “It’s Cause I Am” and the American Idol The two are 24 years old and met quietly, and now they are engaged!

“We wanted to do it very intentionally and keep our relationship private,” Clark explains in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE. “When we got to the point where we wanted to announce our engagement, we wanted this to be the first time people knew that we were officially together this whole time.”

In November 2021, the longtime friends had their first official date together. “I was playing at the Grand Ole Opry and invited (Jacobs) to come backstage with me,” Clark recalls. “Afterwards we went to the movies. So that was our first date.”

Two months later, the two fell in love. Clark says she was fascinated by the Louisiana native long before their first date. “I actually followed (Jacobs) when he was on American Idoland my whole family are huge American Idol fans,” Clark recalls. “I followed him because I thought he was cute.”

The two first met five years ago and immediately began a songwriting session together. From then on, the two often appeared together on their respective social media channels during the pandemic.

Still, things remained purely platonic between the two for a long time, much to the chagrin of their respective families. “Our whole family obviously saw that we had a connection when we sang together, but neither of us was aware of it,” laughs Clark, whose cover of the 1971 Creedence Clearwater Revival hit “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” went viral in 2015. “Our family told us both that we should go out one day.”

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The couple’s families came together last month to celebrate the engagement of the couple, who finally got engaged in the middle of the Tennessee countryside.

“I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a bunch of rose petals,” Jacobs recalls, adding that he had been hatching a plan to propose to Clark since March of this year. “I laid (the rose petals) all out in this beautiful open field and after I proposed, I brought them back to the house and we all had a nice dinner with our families and everything. It really couldn’t have gone any more perfectly than it did.”

Clark was pleasantly surprised… sort of. “We had this engagement photoshoot planned with my photographer for July 3rd and had started talking about getting engaged on Easter, so we were running out of weekends,” laughs Clark, who will release a brand new cover of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” on July 19. “So I knew it had to be soon, but I didn’t know (Jacobs) was going to do it during my content shoot. I had already worn six different outfits that day and it was hot and I was sweating and it had been a long day at work for me.

But then (Jacobs) was there. So it was definitely a big surprise.” What was no surprise, according to the couple, is the love they found for each other. “Garrett is just the most loyal and kind-hearted person I’ve ever met,” Clark raves. “Being in the same industry, he really understands everything I’m going through and he’s just so supportive. He’s genuinely the nicest person ever, so it’s really hard not to love him.”

“And Callie is the kindest, most loving, most understanding person I’ve ever met,” says Jacobs, who asked Clark’s father for permission before proposing. “She’s so confident, and that’s one of the main things that really attracted me to her from the beginning.”

She is someone I want to have by my side and be my best friend for the rest of my life.”

Nevertheless, the two know that many would say they are too young to take the big step.

“Garrett is almost four years older than me, so I never thought I would be dating him, let alone engaged and married,” notes Clark, who plans to marry Jacobs sometime next year. “But yeah, people might say I’m too young, but I think they could have said that about everything I’ve done up to this point. I was too young to sign a record deal, and I was too young to tour, you know? I always felt like an old soul. I always wanted to get married young.”