Happy 21st anniversary to Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley! The singer married the actress on March 15, 2003.
Paisley first spotted his now-wife in the movie Father of the Bride, which he saw with his then-girlfriend. By the time Father of the Bride Part II came out, Paisley had broken up with that girlfriend — in fact, she left him for his best friend! — and went to see the movie alone, where he became mesmerized by Williams.
“I thought, ‘She seems like a great girl — smart and funny and all those things that are so hard to find,'” Paisley recalls to Good Housekeeping.
Fast forward five years, to when Paisley was working on his sophomore album, Part II. The record’s title track references his ex-girlfriend and his thoughts while watching Father of the Bride Part II, so when he was casting for the video for his single “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song),” Paisley immediately thought of Williams.
“It felt natural to ask her to be in it,” he says. “Even though I didn’t know if she was married, divorced or just out of rehab.”
Paisley and Williams two quickly fell in love, despite living on opposite sides of the country. After a nine-month engagement, they wed at the Stauffer Chapel at Pepperdine University, with both of their pastors officiating their ceremony.
Paisley and Williams now reside in Nashville and have two boys: Huck, who was born in 2007, and Jasper, who was born in 2009. And although they’re two successful, and very public, people, the happy couple has found a way to make their relationship work.
“We both have very healthy senses of humor. Anything I take myself too seriously on, she will gladly cut me down to size on and destroy all pre-conceived notions that I’m cool in any way,” Paisley tells The Boot. “You’ve got to have similar outlooks and really healthy senses of humor. Pretension should be completely gone in a marriage. Actually, it should be gone before you get married!
“You should know somebody really well and know that they know how to take a joke and they know how to take you,” he adds. “That’s the key — a sense of humor.”
This story was originally written by Gayle Thompson, and revised by Annie Zaleski.
Brad Paisley + Kimberly Williams Through the Years: