Category: NEWS

“I had the ring in my pocket for two weeks,” the Backstreet Boy tells PEOPLE exclusively of his engagement to fitness expert/actress Lauren Kitt.

“I was like, ‘I don’t want it anymore!’ It was driving me insane. I just wanted to get it out of my hands and on to hers.”

For the momentous occasion, Carter, 33, took his fiancée, 29, to the Florida Keys where he planned a romantic boat ride to a secluded island – but things did not go as smoothly as expected.

“My boat was in such bad condition because I hadn’t used it for, like, six years. It took me five days literally on my hands and knees, scraping up my body [to fix it,]” Carter says. “The engine wasn’t complete yet but we still decided to go out.”

Despite the engine stalling a few times as they set out to sea Wednesday, Carter and Kitt – along with some close friends and Kitt’s father – arrived at a small island Carter had spent time on as a child.

It was there, on the island the couple now refers to as “Engagement Island,” that the Backstreet Boy dropped to one knee and presented his girlfriend of over four years with a seven-carat diamond ring from XIV KARATS.

“She said, ‘Yes,’ and I’m, like, ‘I don’t know what to do,” Carter tells PEOPLE of the proposal. “She said, ‘You’re supposed to put it on my finger.’ So I did. I was in shock.”

The proposal came as a surprise to the bride-to-be as well.

“I wasn’t expecting it. It just felt very surreal,” explains Kitt. “We both are just so happy in love right now and on cloud nine.”

And while the couple is excited for their wedding, there are a few other people they must consult before planning their impending nuptials – the band.

“Our first thought was, ‘We need to contact the Backstreet Boys and find out when their schedule will permit,'” Kitt says of wedding planning while the band works on a new album and prepares for their sold-out fan cruise in October to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

“It’s not up to us. It’s up to the schedule. We’re just excited and looking forward to the next chapter of our lives.”

Anne Vyalitsyna has finally moved on from her spring 2012 split with Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine. As first reported by The New York Post‘s Page Six, the blonde supermodel was spotted cozying up to Scottish DJ Calvin Harris during the Sports Illustrated party at 1OAK Las Vegas Feb. 14.

“The two were constantly laughing, kissing and holding each other throughout the night,” an observer told Page Six.

Vyalitsyna, 26, and Harris, 29, are indeed an item, a source confirms to Us Weekly. “They were all over each other,” the source says of the Sin City bash. “He came to support her and was playing the role of doting boyfriend. . . They were adorable!”

(Harris — known for hits like “Feel So Close”, “Let’s Go” and “Sweet Nothing” — has worked with everyone from Ke$ha to Cheryl Cole. He recently won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for his Rihanna collaboration, “We Found Love.”)

The source adds that the new couple has been together “about a month or two.” When 1Oak’s deejay played Maroon 5’s “One More Night,” Page Six reports, Vyalitsyna and Harris “kissed throughout most of the song.”

Vyalitsyna “blindsided” Levine, 33, when she released a breakup statement on April 2, 2012, without giving The Voice mentor a heads-up. “It was a cheap shot,” a Levine pal told Us. “Anne didn’t want it to look like he broke up with her.”

The 5-foot-9 blonde briefly romanced True Blood‘s Alexander Skarsgard over the summer. Levine, meanwhile, moved on with her model pal Behati Prinsloo, 23.