Luke Combs Says Planning a Wedding Is 'Overwhelming': 'We Just Haven't Had Any Time'

"We're just crazy busy," the country star says of planning his walk down the aisle

Photo: John Shearer/Getty

Luke Combs hasn’t had a chance to get around to planning his wedding yet.

The country star, 29, proposed to longtime girlfriend Nicole Hocking last November in Hawaii, but they’ve been too busy to think about their big day — or even set a date — yet.

“We’re just crazy busy. Especially this year,” the “Beer Never Broke My Heart” singer told PEOPLE Saturday in Austin at the sixth annual iHeartCountry Festival, presented by Capital One. “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.”

Since breaking through in 2016, the CMA and ACM Award-winning Combs recently made history as the first artist to simultaneously top all five Billboard country charts for multiple weeks. Additionally, Combs’s current smash hit “Beautiful Crazy” spent seven straight weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

Combs’ rising star has made planning a walk down the aisle difficult.

“Everything that you do is scrutinized or put in the public light, so it can be like: How do we do this?” he says. “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?'”

Luke Combs. Robby Klein

Despite the challenges, Combs and Hocking are excited for their wedding.

“It’s an interesting process, but we’re looking forward to getting into it,” he adds. “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.”

In addition to busy careers and schedules, Combs and Hocking’s new roles as puppy parents are consuming their limited downtime.

The pair recently adopted Jojo, a black rescue puppy from the Proverbs 12:10 Animal Rescue in Nashville — which they learned about through Dan + Shay‘s Dan Smyers.

“They do a lot of volunteering at this specific rescue and they had sent some pictures. Dan’s wife Abby and my fiancée are real close,” Combs says. “They’ve been texting back and forth, and we’d wanted a dog for a while and just figured: There’s never a good time.”

As soon as he saw a picture of Jojo, Combs knew he was the one.

“I just kinda had a feeling. Literally the first time I met him was when I was adopting him. I already put my application in,” Combs says of the pooch, who is joining him on tour. “He’s the perfect size. He’s 28 lbs. — big enough to not get stepped on, but small enough to not be in the way. He’s awesome. I can’t imagine a better dog.”