James Allen News Center

James Allen has more details on Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves’s engagement and engagement ring!

The celebrity couple has been dating for quite some time and reportedly made vows to each long before their official engagement. In 2005, McConaughey told PEOPLE that he planned to get married when "I'm with the right woman and it's the right time."

McConaughey, who was voted PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive, found the right girl just two years later.

"Everyone is convinced he'll be with her for a long time, if not forever," a friend of McConaughey told the magazine in 2007, about the actor's courtship with the Brazilian model.

The duo soon has matching rings, perhaps promise rings of some sort. Soon after, they moved in to a $1.1 million modular home in Malibu together. In November 2007, the two were spotted at a Japanese restaurant having a ball. "They were laughing the entire time," an onlooker reported. "What a great couple."

McConaughey and Alves started a family, even before thinking about tying the knot. In summer 2008, they welcomed their first son, Levi to the world.

"He's a man – he's my man – and we're a family," Alves told PEOPLE of McConaughey. "He's the best dad he can be – 100 percent hands-on." McConaughey called his leading lady "the love of my life."

A far as marriage, at the time, it wasn’t a priority for McConaughey."It's just not something I plan on doing right now, and that I feel like I need to do right now," the Ghosts of Girlfriends Past actor shared. "It's not an institution I'm against at all. I'm actually for it, believe in it and have seen it actually be very, very healthy for many relationships."

McConaughey sure has come a long way since those days. On Christmas day, he got down on one knee and asked his long time love for her hand in marriage.

"Just asked Camila to marry me…Merry Christmas." He wrote on his WhoSay account immedicately after his proposal.The mother of his two children Levi, 3, and Vida, almost 2, said yes, accepting a show-stopping diamond engagement ring!

We couldn’t be happier for McConaughey, Alves and the kids! May the new year bring them all the joy, peace and more love than they already have!