He knew what he wanted, and he got it… 23 years later, they’re still together and in love.
Brad Paisley has been married to his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, since they tied the knot on March 15th, 2003. They met in 2001 because Brad had asked her to be in his music video for “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” because she had very much caught his attention when he first saw her in the 1991 movie, “Father of the Bride.”
And during a recent appearance on the Live with Kelly & Mark show, Kimberly said they actually had a surprise wedding, which occurred after Brad proposed in 2002. The couple got married in a chapel on the campus of Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and no one knew it was happening… their friends and family thought it was just a regular rehearsal, but Kimberly actually had her wedding dress on under her denim jacket.
She laughed as she explained that everyone was sitting down when she walked out and her husband was “chewing gum”:
“Yeah, we got married at our rehearsal dinner, so we had all of our friends show up for the rehearsal and they were so confused. And I came down the aisle in a denim coat with my ribbon bouquet from my bridal shower, and then we just changed it out and I took off the coat and I had this wedding dress on and I changed out the bouquet.
When I came down the aisle, everyone was sitting down. My husband was chewing gum. You know, they have no idea… they were kind of mad, they were like, why do we have to do this twice? Why are we at the rehearsal, this is so stupid.”
I guess that’s the risk you take when you do a surprise wedding…
She also joked that Brad “stalked her” to get a date, and she realized that it was either “marriage or jail,” and she thought marriage would be easier…
“He stalked me. It could’ve been marriage or jail, and I was, like marriage seems easier… which, turns out… no, but he was so cute. He went and saw ‘Father of the Bride ‘ with his girlfriend, and then she kind of broke his heart, and he went in and wrote all these great songs from his heartbreak.
And then one day, he was like, you know, maybe I should call that girl that was in ‘Father of the Bride’ because the father of the bride had been the movie with this girlfriend.”
Kimberly pointed out that her husband had a confidence like no one else:
“That’s also like how confident he is, he’s like watching a movie and he’s like not this, girl that girl on the screen. And he did it.”
Kelly replied that he had that “singer energy,” and Kimberly admitted it definitely worked:
“That’s sexy energy.”
Brad and Kimberly have been married for over two decades, have two teenage boys together, and do a ton to give back to their local communities. And it all happened because Brad saw “Father of the Bride” with an ex-girlfriend…
