When Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams first began dating, the odds were not in their favor. He was a small-town Southern guy turned country singer, just becoming famous for his witty song lyrics and killer guitar style. She was born and raised in New York, then moved to Los Angeles while costarring in the long-running ABC sitcom According to Jim. She knew zero about country music; in fact, she thought that at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry they sang, well, opera. To him, her Hollywood world had questionable values. "I used to be pretty judgmental back then," he says.
Then they had dinner together — and afterward both were convinced that something important had happened. "Maybe two people in love always feel like there's a bigger power at work," says Brad, 35. Kim, 36, nods in agreement: "We just felt like all the events of our lives had come together for us to meet right when we did."
The couple got together in the fall of 2001. But Brad fell for his future wife long before he even met her. Ten years earlier, as a 19-year-old aspiring musician in tiny Glen Dale, WV, he spent his first date with a local girl watching Father of the Bride, the movie in which an unknown actress named Kimberly Williams made her film debut. By the time the sequel came out, Brad was 23, living in Nashville, and feeling miserable because that girlfriend had left him for his best friend. Moping, he went to see Father of the Bride II — alone. And seeing Williams on-screen again, "I thought, She seems like a great girl — smart and funny and all those things that are so hard to find."
Five years later, Brad was still single but his career was in full swing, with the Academy of Country Music having named him top male vocalist of the year. His latest album, Part II, featured several songs he'd written about the old girlfriend. "It even had a song about going to Father of the Bride," he says. So when the time came to cast the music video, he thought of the girl in the movie. "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."
During their first phone call, they chatted with such ease that soon they were talking almost daily. When Brad told Kim he was finally coming to L.A., she jumped right in and asked him to dinner. "He was such a polite Southern gentleman," she says. "I was getting impatient."
But from that first date forward, Brad made it clear that he was very interested. "I really said to myself, This time I'm not going to play games. I'm not going to pretend I'm somebody else, or do things I won't be proud of later," he says. Then he grins. "I didn't use my evil powers!"
Finally, one clear and starry night, Brad walked Kim out to the end of the Venice Beach pier and made a speech about how they were meant to be in each other's lives, and vowed he'd always be there for her. Six months later, on that same pier, he surprised her with an engagement ring. "He proposed right in front of the public toilets," says Kim, and they both crack up. Nine months after that, they were married — and since they attended different churches, their two pastors co-officiated.
In February 2007, Kim gave birth to the couple's first child, a highly energetic boy they named William Huckleberry Paisley (called Huck for short). As the couple sits in the living room of the cozy Pacific Palisades house the family calls home when Kim is working in L.A., they take turns bouncing and cuddling the apple-cheeked boy. "He's our fat little man," says Brad, scooping up Huck as the daddy-dazzled baby giggles and coos.
Their relationship isn't always so idyllic, they insist. She's a bit of a neat freak, he says, "whereas I figure, we have a housekeeper, so it can wait till Friday." Interjects Kim: "He comes home and it's like a tornado hit!"
But outright arguments they've learned to put to rest quickly. "She's really good about not holding grudges," he says. "And he's really good about apologizing," she adds. Brad laughs. "I usually start with that," he explains. "She says there's this whole phrase I could say in my sleep: 'I'm sorry. You're right. And I love you.'" It helps, says Kim, that they made a point of getting couples counseling before they got married. "We figured, the odds are against us because we're both in entertainment," she says. "And we know that it's really rare for couples to succeed. So we wanted to arm ourselves with as many strategies as we could."
From falling in love to starting a family: For Brad, personal fulfillment has had a professional payoff, too. "I have more to write about now," he says. "Before, I had nothing to write about but failed relationships and life on the road. Now, I feel emotions more deeply in every sense. When you feel that kind of love — love for Kim and love for him," he says, nodding at Huck. "It even makes for better songs."
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