AceShowbiz -

"Switched at Birth" star Katie Leclerc, who plays the lead role of the hearing-impaired Daphne Vasquez on the ABC Family series, has just gotten engaged to her real estate agent boyfriend Brian Stuart Habecost. The 26-year-old TV actress and her fiance plan to walk down the aisle next fall.

"We are thrilled to start our life together. We can't wait to combine families and start the adventure together," said Leclerc just days before she turns a year older this coming Wednesday. Leclerc met Habecost at her old talent agency where he was also working as an agent at that time, en route to meeting up with her own agent.

Habecost had diligently decorated their entire Los Angeles home with balloons, flowers and a big banner asking her if she would marry him. As soon as Leclerc walked in and realized what was happening, she began to cry tears of joy as Habecost got down on one knee to ask for her hand in marriage.

"I am so in love with Brian. It was so beautiful how he proposed. I could not be happier," the blushing bride-to-be gushed about the romantic proposal of her fiance, who apparently encouraged her to take on the lead actress job at "Switched at Birth". It was to become the work she is now best known for after several guest appearances on such shows as "Veronica Mars", "Fashion House" and "The Big Bang Theory".