Luke Combs on Planning a Wedding as a Celebrity: ‘Everything You Do Is Scrutinized’

Luke Combs got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Nicole Hocking, last year, but that doesn’t mean they have gotten too far into the wedding plans. The singer-songwriter admits it has been a challenge for them, in part because of his rising star status.

“Everything that you do is scrutinized or put in the public light, so it can be like: How do we do this?” Combs confessed to PEOPLE. “I don’t like the word ‘celebrity wedding,’ but how do you get a venue? Me and her would want to go look at the venue and make sure we like it. How do you go there and make sure that people working there aren’t going to say, ‘Hey, these people are getting married here?’”

Time definitely plays a factor in their lack of planning as well. After Combs’ first five singles each became chart-topping, multi-platinum hits, he just announced the release of his sixth single, “Beer Never Broke My Heart.”

“We’re just crazy busy. Especially this year,” said Combs, who is also headlining his Beer Never Broke My Heart Tour. “We just haven’t had any time to sit back and be home for more than three or four days. And it’s just a really overwhelming process, doing what we do.”

Combs will soon have a little bit of time off later this year, where he and Hocking hope to start working out the details of their big day.

“It’s an interesting process, but we’re looking forward to getting into it,” Combs said. “We’ve got some time off later this year, for about six weeks, so I’m sure we’ll get into it then and get some things done.”

Combs’ busy schedule might delay wedding plans, but he isn’t going to complain about that. After the North Carolina native moved to Nashville to pursue a music career, he spent months without anyone paying him any attention at all.

“The first eight months [in Nashville], nobody would touch me with a ten-foot pole,” Combs told CMT. “I had meetings with publishers and labels, and people would say, ‘Man, the songs just aren’t that great.’ But it was my songs, it was ‘Hurricane,’ it was ‘When It Rains.’”

Instead of feeling discouraged, Combs used that time to hone his craft.

“It was fuel for me,” Combs recalled. “That motivated me so much. I don’t ever want to get to the pinnacle of my success and gloat to anybody. That’s not the right thing to do. I’m proud of what we have, and I’m proud of how it all happened. Those things that didn’t work out for me probably mean that at the time, I wasn’t ready yet.”

Download “Beer Never Broke My Heart” on iTunes. Find a list of all of Combs’ upcoming shows by visiting his website.

Photo Credit: Getty images/John Shearer