Singer Callista Clark Is Engaged to “American Idol'”s Garrett Jacobs: 'Always Wanted to Get Married Young' (Exclusive)

The “It’s Cause I Am” singer and the 'American Idol' alum have been quietly dating for the last three years

Callista Clark and Garrett Jacobs are opening up about their love story.

The “It’s Cause I Am” singer, 20, and the American Idol alum, 24, have been quietly dating for the last three years, and now, they are engaged!

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

In November of 2021, the longtime friends went out on their first official date together. “I was playing the Grand Ole Opry and I invited (Jacobs) to come backstage with me,” remembers Clark. “We went to the movies after that. So that was our first date.”

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

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It was five years ago when the couple met for the first time, and immediately went into a songwriting session together. From there, the two often found themselves performing together during the pandemic on their respective social media channels.

Still, the pair kept things purely platonic for a long time, much to the chagrin of their respective families. “Our whole family apparently saw that we had a connection when we sang together, but we both were oblivious to this,” laughs Clark,  whose cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival 1971 hit “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” led her to go viral in 2015. “Our family said stuff to both of us that we should date one day.”

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The couple's families came together last month to celebrate the pair who ultimately got engaged amidst the Tennessee countryside.

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

Clark was pleasantly surprised…sort of. “We had scheduled this engagement photo shoot with my photographer on July 3rd, and we had started talking about getting engaged this 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 been in six different outfits that day and it was hot, and I was sweating, and it had been a long workday for me.

But then (Jacobs) was there. So, it was definitely a big surprise.” What hasn’t been a surprise, according to the twosome, is the love they have found in one another. “Garrett is just the most loyal and kind-hearted person that I’ve ever met,” Clark gushes. “Since we're in the same industry, he really gets everything that I’m going through, and he’s just so supportive. He is genuinely just the nicest person ever, so it's really hard to not love him.”

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“And Callie is the most kind hearted and loving and understanding person that I’ve ever met,” says Jacobs, who asked Clark’s father for permission before popping the question. “She is so confident in who she is, and that’s one of the main things that really attracted me to her at first.

She is somebody that I want to be on my side and be my best friend for the rest of my life.”

Nevertheless, the two know that many might say that they are too young to make sure a huge step.

“Garrett is almost four years older than me, so I didn’t ever think that I would be dating him, much less engaged and marrying him,” remarks Clark, who plans to marry Jacobs sometime next year. “But yeah, people might say I am too young, but I feel like people could have said that about anything that I’ve done at this point. I was too young to sign a record deal and I was too young to go out on tour, you know? I’ve always felt like an old soul. I’ve always wanted to get married young.”

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