Hallmark Star Kimberly Williams-Paisley Caught Husband Brad's Eye Years Before They Got Together

Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Brad Paisley have been married for more than two decades, but we still can't get over how they got together in the first place. Oddly enough, we could thank Brad's ex for kicking off their romance. That's because he first saw Kimberly in her 1991 breakout film "Father of the Bride," which was special to him and his then-girlfriend. 

After the two broke up, Brad apparently tried to use the film's 1995 sequel to win her back. "So, he went to the same theater where they had their first date, thinking, 'If she thinks about it the way I'm thinking about it, she'll also show up to the sequel,'" Kimberly explained on "Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson" in 2025. Brad's ex never showed up, but Kimberly did catch his eye. "I thought, she seems like a great girl—smart and funny and all those things that are so hard to find," he told Good Housekeeping in 2007 (via Woman's World).

Several years later, Brad must've still been thinking about Kimberly because he asked her to be in his music video for the 2001 song "I'm Gonna Miss Her." Kimberly even joked on "Good Morning America" that Brad had "stalked" her after seeing her in "Father of the Bride." Brad, however, recalls the events before their first phone call a little differently, telling Today in 2025, "I didn't know much about her at all. And I just said, 'It would be poetic justice if you were in the music video, wouldn't it?" The rest was history. 

Kimberly Williams-Paisley thinks Brad Paisley may have offered her a role in his music video just to date her. While Kimberly says she was immediately game to be in the video because she thought it would be fun, it didn't happen right away. She revealed on the "Sibling Revelry" podcast what led her to believe that Brad's offer was a pick-up line. "We had already been dating for two months and I was like, 'Whatever happened to that video that you wanted me to do?'" she recalled.

Whether or not Brad actually used his music video as a way to meet Kimberly, the phone call offering her the role did lead to their romance — and the video did end up coming out in early 2002. Brad even seemed to make a good impression with Kimberly's manager, who apparently knew right away that the two would go on to date after speaking with Brad beforehand.

Of course, the power couple didn't just date; they eventually got married in 2003 and now have two kids together. Kimberly told Fox News Digital in 2026 that the secret to their decades-long marriage is not leaving and finding time to spend together. "We have to be deliberate about it," she explained, adding, "But when we have the downtime, we really make the most of it." Quality time is one of the five love languages, after all. Now that you know all about Kimberly's love story, check out the real-life partners of the other "9-1-1" universe ladies.