Sabrina Soto Details Her ‘Crazy’ Escape Room Proposal, Wedding Plans and New Talk Show (Exclusive)

• Interior designer Sabrina Soto got engaged to MLB physical therapist Nathan Whitney in January during an escape room challenge. The final clue was actually a book written by Whitney which chaptered each month of their relationship and had the engagement ring hidden inside
• “It was so romantic and also so creative and thoughtful,” Soto tells PEOPLE of the proposal
• Now that Soto’s new talk show, The Sabrina Soto Show, is finally airing, she says she’ll be able to focus more on wedding planning

Sabrina Soto is opening up about her fiancé, proposal, wedding and new talk show!

The interior designer, 49, announced her engagement on Instagram on Jan. 27, writing, “💍 The most unexpected surprise of my life. Forever starts now. ❤️.”

At the time, Soto did not publicly identify her fiancé — Nathan “Nate” Whitney, a physical therapist for the Chicago Cubs — because “he’s not a social media person.” But now, she’s exclusively sharing details with PEOPLE about her future husband, his “crazy” proposal and their potential wedding plans.

“He makes me laugh so much,” Soto tells PEOPLE of Whitney. “I feel so safe with him and I just respect him a lot. I actually like the person he is. I know that sounds weird because, of course, I have to like him, but I think a lot of people get caught up in passion and things, but at the end of the day he’s my best friend.”

The couple met online about a year and a half ago. Soto initially worried their relationship wouldn’t work because Whitney lived in Chicago, and she wasn’t sure if he would be willing to move to Los Angeles. She addressed the issue on their third date because she “didn’t want to waste his time.”

“It’s funny — because of the long distance, we had to kind of get some things off the table just to make sure we were on the same page,” Soto says. “I think that kind of started a good foundation for communication for us.”

When it came time for the surprise proposal, Whitney had everything planned to a T. His parents were flying into town for a visit. Before they arrived, Whitney asked Soto if she wanted to do something “fun” with him, suggesting an escape room. Having never done one before, Soto excitedly agreed. 

The former HGTV star almost backed out of the date because her daughter, Olivia Gray — whom she shares with ex-boyfriend Steve Grevemberg — suddenly got sick, and she wanted to clean the house again. Because escape rooms only take about an hour, Soto decided that it would be okay to still go.

“I didn’t know that it’s not normal for two people to be in the building by themselves,” she says. “We get into this room, he’s acting so nervous. I knew he was nerdy, but this is taking it to a whole new level — that he’s this frantic about an escape room, taking it so seriously.”

A book popped out for the final clue. Soto opened it expecting another escape room hint but instead found her love story with Whitney, and a diamond ring sitting in a hollowed-out hole.

“It’s this book that he wrote to me,” Soto explains. “Every chapter was a month in our relationship, and it was a picture of us, and then the chapter was about how our relationship changed his life in that particular month. At the end of the book, he cut a hole and my engagement ring was in the book.”

Soto was moved by the “thoughtful” proposal, but was also stressed that they’d be late to pick up Whitney’s parents from the airport.

“I just started crying and I thought, ‘Okay, well, we still have to go pick up your parents,’ ” Soto recalls. “And he was like, ‘My parents are already here.’ ” 

Whitney’s parents and Soto’s family were waiting to celebrate the engagement at a restaurant where the couple had their first date.

“It was just crazy that he went through all of that,” Soto says. “That they were waiting for it was so romantic and also so creative and thoughtful. Also funny because I’m not an escape room kind of person but he had to plan something off-the-wall for me to be surprised. I had no idea.”

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Soto and Whitney have started tossing around wedding ideas, but haven’t made any final decisions.

“At first I just thought we should go to City Hall,” Soto says. “So it’s gone all the way from just going to City Hall to a wedding. I have a place in Flora Farms in Cabo, a little farm, it’s on the actual farm, a little house. So we’ve gone from City Hall to maybe out on the farm to maybe a wedding here, so we don’t know yet.”

Soto has been busy planning and working on what “almost feels like a wedding” — her new talk show, The Sabrina Soto Show, which she hosts and executive produces. 

“Once the show airs I’ll be able to really give myself to focusing on the wedding and doing all the planning for that,” Soto tells PEOPLE.

The first episode of The Sabrina Soto Show, in which Justina Blakeney, Catherine McCord and Lewis Howes guest star, premieres on Monday, March 17, on The Design Network, streaming on Hulu, Samsung, Amazon and Roku. The show features expert-driven conversations on home, food, wellness and more.

“There’s no chance that you watch any episode of The Sabrina Soto Show and you don’t improve some facet of your life,” Soto says. “There’s so much takeaway in every episode.”

“The whole reason that I wanted to create this show was to show people how to redesign their lives. I have been in ruts in my own life, whether it be in relationships or career, and it took me so much time to figure out what the right tools were to kind of turn things around and get out of a rut, and that’s what this show is about,” she continues. “It’s about motivating people and inspiring people to make those small shifts that make a big impact in their life.”