Joe Manganiello is riding high; he is starring in one of the hottest movies of the summer, was recently deemed one of the sexiest men alive, and is preparing to tie the knot with Sofia Vergara. The couple got engaged in December after a whirlwind six month romance – despite the fact that Sofia initially tried her hardest to push Magic Mike star Joe away."Our first date was her giving me every reason why it would never work out," Joe, 38, has revealed in a new interview with Haute Living. "Like, 'You're too young, you're an actor, you're this, you're that,' and she was just doing it to hear herself say it. She was trying to talk herself out of going there."
© Photo: Getty ImagesJoe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara got engaged in December after a whirlwind six months
Most of all he says, 42-year-old Sofia thought she needed to be single after the end of her engagement to Nick Loeb. "She had just gotten out of a relationship and I knew that she wanted to be single," he admitted. "But we knew right away… I said to her, 'If you need to be single, go do it and do it now if that's what you need to do', and she didn't. "She tried to stay away from actors and I tried to stay away from actresses as much as possible, because of the fear of being away from each other. What happened then was that we wound up in relationships with people who didn't understand us."Joe and Sofia understood each other so well in fact, that a short time later Joe "went and got a ring and made it official".He popped the question on the Hawaiian island of Kauai on Christmas Eve. "I had to do it indoors because the island was infested with paparazzi," he revealed. "I wanted to do it on the beach but I couldn't; I had to do it inside, which was fine.
© Photo: Getty ImagesThe happy couple are now in the middle of planning their wedding
"We had this big bay window and the sun was going down pink over the mountains and over the bay, and I had this ring. I had looked at every ring in the world, and this is the ring that I wanted. I had a whole speech prepared in Spanish. I proposed to her on one knee in Spanish with the sun going down. It was awesome. "The happy couple – who Joe describes as "salt-of-the-earth people" – have now set a date and are preparing to become husband and wife. When it comes to the wedding, Joe acknowledged Sofia is far more hands-on. "As far as planning stuff goes, she loves decorating stuff and she loves designing; she's very traditional in that way," he said. "As long as she's happy with it, I'm happy. I'm not the kind of guy that's like, 'I need this kind of tablecloth.' We're very traditional male-female in that way. (I’ll be like) 'What do you need me to do? I'll call the DJ.'"
