Leighanne Wallace tells their love story...

Brian Littrell is a very lucky man - and doesn't he just know it. As well as being one of the five men who make up global pop phenomenon the Backstreet Boys (their last album, Millennium, has so far sold a staggering 30 million copies worldwide), he is marrying actress Leighanne Wallace next month.

But Brian came very close to losing all of this. In November 1997 doctors discovered that a congenital hole in Brian's heart had enlarged to dangerous proportions. In order to meet his group's touring commitments, he postponed open-heart surgery for six months, finally going under the surgeon's knife in May the following year.

But Leighanne is not worried about her fiancé's health - in fact, the (now healthy) organ in question is what makes her own heart beat faster.

"One of the things I love most about Brian is his big heart and that was what attracted me when we first met," says the Southern belle. The couple have been going out together for three years and first met on a Backstreet Boys video Leighanne was appearing in. "It was definitely love at first sight," she reveals, continuing, "Brian is a romance king. He proposed at Christmas in my mum's back garden. It was 30 degrees and he wanted to have a picnic.

"He took me outside, wearing his coat, late in the afternoon and proposed to me surrounded by candles and wine." She says, "He picked Christmas because it was a time that my family were all in town and he wanted them to be part of it, he's very thoughtful that way.

Leighanne confides, "I've managed to find someone who loves me as much as I love him and we are both very lucky.

"Everyone knows we are getting married in September in Georgia, but we are keeping the exact date a secret. We want to keep it as intimate as we can."