Last season’s American Idol runner up Katharine McPhee, 23, is said to be heading to the altar after about a year of dating her much older boyfriend, Nick Cokas, 41. They were seen shopping for wedding cakes, and Katherine is said to have told a customer that they’re planning to get married.

“Katharine and Nick spent about an hour at the backery before she gushed to a customer that they’re planning their wedding,” an eyewitness told The Enquirer.

“Nick sat at an outside table with her dog while Katharine went inside for coffees and asked the clerk if she could see their wedding cake albums.

“She brought the albums outside to their table, and they sat huddled together, browing through three albums of wedding cakes.

“Nick was getting into it as much as Katharine was. He was pointing out the things he liked about the different cakes, and sharing with Katharine what he envisioned having at the wedding…”

Although Katharine said [to a customer who asked] they hadn’t yet set a date, she explained they were “definitely planning to marry in the near future.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, May 21, 2007]

The article says that Katherine’s rep denies that they’re getting married. It also seems like they could be playfully looking at wedding cakes without being definitely engaged, but if Katherine’s boyfriend was excited about it too, it seems like he’s certainly open to it.

Last June we ran a story about Katharine’s boyfriend, Nick Cokas. Cokas is a broadway performer and met McPhee when they were performing in the musical “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” in Hollywood from May – July, 2006.

He’s the co-founder of Zenith film group, which produced a play called “Red Herring” for the NY Fringe Festival last year. He was also in the cast of “Mamma Mia!” in Las Vegas.

In a recent interview, McPhee talked about getting media attention. She said “I’m really proud of it. I don’t pay a ton of attention to it. I usually don’t even know about it until someone tells me. I don’t have my cell phone Google it! People just tell me and I’ll check it out or I won’t. And it’s cool.”