Hoda Kotb Is Engaged! See the Photos from the Romantic Beachside Proposal
Wedding bells are on the horizon for Hoda Kotb!
On Monday, the Today show co-host, 55, revealed that she got engaged to her longtime financier beau Joel Schiffman, 61, over the weekend. Schiffman popped the question while the two were enjoying an intimate dinner by the beach.
In a photo from the engagement, Kotb is seen smiling and showing off her new ring as she sits next to her husband-to-be at dinner.
The couple then headed down to the beach, where they wrote “Hoda and Joel” in the sand with rose petals scattered around the sweet message.
Kotb told her Today co-hosts Monday that Schiffman “said some beautiful things” when he asked her to marry him.
“My heart has literally been pounding,” she said. “I was totally shocked. He had a good poker face.”
Kotb noted the pair — who have been together for six years — hadn’t told her daughters, Haley Joy, 2, and Hope Catherine, who she adopted in April. “We’re still trying to figure out that part,” she admitted.
The NBC co-host, who was previously married to Burzis Kanga for two years from 2005 to 2007, gushed about her relationship with Schiffman in 2015. “He’s the guy that gives me butterflies at 50 years old,” she said.
“It’s one of the most natural relationships I’ve ever been in,” she previously told PEOPLE of her romance, and added, “I’m so happy, I really am. But you know sometimes you hate to jinx something. I’m like, ‘don’t jinx it!’ ”
Although Schiffman was left off of the domestic adoption application documents to simplify the entire process when she adopted Haley in 2017, Kotb told PEOPLE that “Haley will call him Dad.”
“I was afraid to even say it out loud because then it felt so real,” she told PEOPLE. “I said, ‘Think about it for a day or a week or whatever.’ And he said, ‘I don’t need a day. Let’s get this journey going.’ At that point I blubbered like a baby. It was like the dam burst.”
“[He] has been so great,” Kotb gushed about Schiffman, who has an adult daughter, Kyle, from his previous marriage. “He’s such a great dad and a great influence.”
Source: Read Full Article