“Clueless. I was clueless,” is how Zooey Deschanel describes the moments before her now-fiance Jonathan Scott proposed.
The Property Brothers host, 45, popped the question to the actress, 43, after four years of dating in August — and pulled off quite the surprise spectacle with the help of her two kids, Elsie, 8, and Charlie, 6, he tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story.
On the big day, Scott ensured their group was the last at Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle, a favorite spot of the HGTV star’s in his family’s ancestral homeland. A bagpipe band was performing on the grounds, but when the music suddenly changed, Deschanel says, “I was like, ‘I think something’s happening.’”
A guitarist stepped forward and started to play Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.” “That’s a special song for us,” she explains. But, “I didn’t want to decide what was happening until I knew.”
Rob McDougall
“And then the kids pulled a banner out that said, ‘Zooey, will you marry me?'” says Scott.
“And I said yes,” adds Deschanel.
That moment wasn’t just a surprise for the actress, but for the children as well. Scott hadn’t told them the details of the plan until the big moment. “They would’ve told me immediately,” the actress admits.
Rob McDougall
But the kids’ surprise only added to the sweetness of the moment.
“When Elsie turned around and read the sign, she immediately goes, ‘Did you just get married?’And we’re like, ‘Well, no, not yet. But we got engaged!’ ” says Scott. “And she’s like, ‘Does that mean I get to be a flower girl?’ And we’re like, ‘Yes. Yes you can.’ So it was really sweet to have them there too.”
“It was so special,” says Deschanel.
Scott had been planning the moment in secret for months.
“I had asked her parents’ permission two and a half months before doing it. And they were like, ‘We already consider you family,’ which, I feel the same way.”
And he’d picked out the ring a year earlier after Deschanel mentioned she liked it. “I immediately screen-grabbed that and held onto it for a long time. That was the one she got.”
While the proposal went off without a hitch, the ring still needs a little tweaking, they admit.
“I measured so badly. I was trying to figure out what ring size…” explains Scott.
“He’s like, ‘What ring size is a woman?'” his fiancee jokes. “I’m a 4.75. That’s my ring size in case anybody wants to buy me a ring.”
“Better not,” Scott jumps in. “She’s off the market.”
Scott shares even more special moments from their engagement on the newly relaunched drewandjonathan.com.
For all the details on Zooey Deschanel and Jonathan Scott ‘s new life as a blended family and their new dream home, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
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