Crystal Hefner Is Engaged to James Ward, Reveals ‘Perfect’ Wedding Destination (Exclusive)

Former Playboy model Crystal Hefner is engaged!

James Ward proposed to Hefner on Friday, April 25, at her Hawaii home. Us Weekly was first to report the news, noting that Ward popped the question “with a six-carat, vintage mine-cut diamond set on a whisper-thin band.”

The couple have been dating since mutual friends set them up in April 2024.

Speaking exclusively with PEOPLE after he popped the question, Ward — the owner of the tour company SeeThrough Sea on Kailua-Kona in Hawaii — shared that it was quite the challenge to keep his proposal a secret from Hefner, 39.

“It runs so contrary to our connection to keep anything from her,” he shares, “[but] there was just that small buoying force of knowing how happy the surprise would make her that made it so worthwhile.”

“If you know Crystal, you know she doesn’t miss a thing,” Ward, 41, adds of his now-fiancée. “She’s that wonderful combination of smart and attentive, so I really had to step up my game to avoid an overshare. I also had a LOT of help from a whole host of people that did so much of the work. I definitely have them to thank for the best parts of the surprise.”

Since the pair began dating just over a year ago, they’ve spent lots of time together in Hawaii, where Ward has lived since 2013, and also vacationed in the Cook Islands.

Although the couple is still newly engaged, Hefner has already been considering some wedding planning options — and she tells PEOPLE a tropical wedding in a location that is “warm and familiar” would be perfect for her and Ward.

“We love somewhere warm and familiar to us, Hawaii and the Cook Islands would be perfect options,” she shares. “We’ve had the best time in the past in the Cook Islands, so that’s at the top of our list.”

“We want to be close to nature, close to the ocean, and just have things be simple and beautiful,” Hefner adds.

The couple previously spoke to PEOPLE in September about their relationship, soon after the release of Hefner’s best-selling memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, about her life as the girlfriend and widow of Hugh Hefner. Her marriage to the Playboy founder ended after five years, when he died in 2017 at the age of 91.

Speaking of her love life with Ward, Hefner told PEOPLE last year: “Things feel healthy. I am so lucky.”

The model and actress, who got her real estate license in 2008, opened up about meeting Ward through their mutual friends, and said that she was “nurturing the real me, my adventurous spirit, my inner child” following the release of her book.”