A ring fit for a queen! Miss USA Nia Sanchez got some serious new bling this past weekend when her boyfriend, actor Daniel Booko, presented her with an engagement ring.
Booko, who has appeared in movies and TV shows such as 21 & Over, Perception, and The O.C., proposed to his beauty queen love on Saturday, Oct. 4. “We’re engaged!” the actor, 30, tweeted on Sunday. “Ahhhh! Can’t wait to spend forever with my love and best friend @realniasanchez @missusa #bestnightever #TheBookos.”
Sanchez, 24, stepped out with her sparkling new piece of jewelry and her new fiancé on Sunday after the couple’s exciting night. The California-born stunner showed off her two-carat ring while out and about in New York City with Booko. She looked beautiful in a wide-brim slate grey hat, a feathered vest over a grey T-shirt, and blue jeans. Her husband-to-be grinned in a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, a plaid flannel button-down over a white T-shirt, and dark pants.
The beauty, who competed in the national pageant as Miss Nevada, publicized her relationship with her now-fiancé after her big win this past June. “I’ve been with him for a little over a year now,” she said of Booko during a press conference after she received her crown.
“I am so blessed!” she gushed via Instagram on Sunday. Sanchez was surrounded by some of her closest friends when Booko proposed this past weekend. Her pal and former Miss California Raquel Dorsey shared a photo of the happy moment, captioning the shot, “I love this sweet girl so much! It was an honor to witness her magical proposal? @danielbooko did an exceptional job including us on the surprise engagement!”
The proposal may have been a bit unexpected for Sanchez, as she told the Las Vegas Sun this past March that she didn’t expect a ring anytime soon.
“We’re not thinking about getting married for a while, not anytime within the next year, for sure,” she said in March. “Eventually, I would love to, but we have to wait until after the pageants. Poor guy! He keeps getting pushed back when he thinks it’s going to happen. At first he thought it was going to happen this year, and then I won Miss Nevada. So he said, ‘Okay, I’ll have to wait a year,’ and I said, ‘Well, what if I win Miss USA?’ He’s like, ‘Alright, I guess we’ll have to wait even longer.'”
