Braunwyn Windham-Burke and Jennifer Spinner Are Engaged

Braunwyn Windham-Burke and Jennifer Spinner celebrated their 1-year anniversary on Saturday by getting engaged — for actual this time!

After exchanging promise rings in January, committing to at least one one other in a Las Vegas marriage ceremony chapel on Valentine’s Day, transferring collectively to Tennessee within the spring and getting a pair of matching tattoos to mark their bond earlier this month, the couple took the official step in the direction of their plan to marry, with Windham-Burke, 45, proposing to Spinner, 39, at 14th Avenue Park in New York Metropolis.

“I’ve by no means been happier,” the Actual Housewives of Orange County alum tells PEOPLE, celebrating the milestone. “Jen is my particular person. She stated to me as soon as, ‘How a lot do you like me?’ And I checked out her and stated, ‘It isn’t how a lot I like you. It is how small I like you. I like you on a molecular stage.’ And that is actually it. My DNA was made for her. I am a thrilled to have the ability to say now, ‘That is my fiancée’ — similar to I do know, I will sooner or later have the ability to say, ‘That is my spouse.’ ”

Windham-Burke deliberate the entire proposal, a part of a day of actions she organized for Spinner.

The mom of seven — who shares youngsters Bella, 22, Rowan, 20, Jacob, 17, 9-year-old twins Caden and Curren, Koa, 7, and Hazel, 4, with soon-to-be ex-husband Sean Burke — recreated her first date for Spinner, carrying the very same outfit and going step-by-step by way of the issues the 2 had finished on that day.

“We had been speaking over direct message and over the telephone for few weeks at that time, however we hadn’t met in particular person but,” Windham-Burke recollects. “And I we each went into the day pondering we’d simply be pals. The truth is, she’ll let you know, she got here extra for a narrative! She was like, ‘Will not this be a joke to inform my pals sooner or later? The time I frolicked with a Housewife?’ ”

However because the spent the day collectively — strolling the Excessive Line, getting popsicles and speaking — they each acknowledged there was far more to their connection, with Spinner telling Windham-Burke the preconceived notion she had about her from RHOC wasn’t in any respect who she was.

“There wasn’t a subject we did not talk about that first day,” says Windham-Burke. “We received deep, quick. It was, ‘What’s necessary to you? What would you like out of life? What’s your relationship with your loved ones? Would you like youngsters? Are you non secular?’ We talked about all of it. By way of that, we discovered we had all this stuff in frequent. And we shortly began to understand, ‘Oh, that is one thing else.’

Whereas on Little Island, Windham-Burke and Spinner shared their first kiss. “After which we simply stored kissing for the subsequent two hours, all the way in which again to Penn station,” recollects Windham-Burke. “She was staying together with her brother on Lengthy Island and I bear in mind pondering, ‘I do not need her to go.’ “

“By the tip of the day, I used to be like, ‘There’s one thing about this lady, I am know I will be together with her ceaselessly,’ ” Windham-Burke says. “So it felt becoming to recreate that day, however now with me displaying her, “Sure, I do wish to be with you ceaselessly — and I’ve a hoop to show it!’ ”

That ring, talking of, was one thing Windham-Burke picked out whereas again house at an area vintage retailer in Tennessee. “She wished extra of a masculine fashion ring, and she or he wished it to be vintage as a result of she loves issues with tales,” Windham-Burke tells PEOPLE. “So I discovered this lovely gold deco ring together with her birthstone, which is a ruby, and 4 diamonds on the sie.”

After strolling the Excessive Line and visiting Little Island, Windham-Burke took Spinner to 14th Avenue Park, the place Beneath the Tree — a feminine based, minority-owned luxurious picnic firm — helped arrange a selection for the 2, with macaroons, footage of the pair from their yr collectively, and a “Marry Me” signal. “It was so lovely and Jen was shocked when she noticed it,” says Windham-Burke. “I could not have finished it with out them. They made the day that rather more particular.”

As for the marriage, Windham-Burke and Spinner — who identifies as non-binary and makes use of she/her pronouns — have beforehand mentioned doing it in Nashville, at an previous house, subsequent October. “It will be one thing intimate and really nation,” laughs Windham-Burke. “Suppose cowboy boots.”

After all, earlier than that occurs, Windham-Burke should get divorced. She formally filed in October 2022 after 23 years of marriage to Burke, and expects issues to be wrapped throughout the subsequent few months.

“A part of the explanation I proposed now was as a result of I now have an finish date in my divorce; we’re about 80 days from it wrapping,” Windham-Burke tells PEOPLE. “Earlier than, the divorce appeared infinite, like it could by no means occur, so we did issues like alternate promise rings or have that Vegas marriage ceremony with Elvis in efforts to set intentions in our relationship. ‘That is what we’re promising to one another. That is our dedication to start out a life collectively.’ Now, it is completely different. I proposed at the moment realizing we will truly begin planning a marriage. So it feels unbelievable.”

The truth is, Windham-Burke appears at this second because the ending of a really powerful chapter.

“My life was type of up in turmoil for awhile,” says Windham-Burke, who received sober in January 2020 and got here out as Lesbian practically a yr later. “By way of all these modifications in my life, I wasn’t at peace. I used to be engaged on myself, attempting to remain sober, attempting to make issues work with Sean — all whereas coming to phrases with my sexuality and leaping from relationship to relationship. I used to be struggling! I used to be struggling to be a mother, to be a gift accomplice and to essentially sit with myself. And after assembly Jen, all that modified.”

“Jen’s been the stability for me. She’s the one to be like, ‘It will be okay. I am right here. I received you.’ She’s proven up for me in methods I can not even clarify, and proven up for my youngsters too. There have been instances when, post-separation, I apprehensive the children and I might not be okay. However she by no means faltered. She’s been an incredible accomplice to me and an incredible stepmom to my youngsters. And getting engaged is a method of displaying my youngsters too, ‘That is your mother. She’s not going anyplace.’ “

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The truth star will get emotional, holding again tears as she lets what she simply stated sit in.

“My life now’s what I’ve wished for thus lengthy,” she says. “It’s a must to understand, I received to a sure level the place I spotted that I had made my life about all of the improper issues. And it set in, that the easy life is what truly need. I’m frantic. I am over-the-top. I am emotionally unstable at instances. And Jen simply rolls with it and loves me for simply the way in which I’m. And in that, comes peace. That is one thing I have not seen in myself for a very long time, possibly not ever.

“I used to be all the time searching for one thing — whether or not it was ingesting or partying or a TV present or fame — and I could not discover it. And clearly, it isn’t one one who creates calm in you; it is a bunch of issues in your life coming collectively on the identical time. However I can truthfully say, Jen began the ball rolling on that each one. And I am not greedy for something anymore,” Windham-Burke says. “I’ve lastly discovered it.”