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" Kimberly and Brad: City Girl, Country Boy 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&amp;#039;s Grand Ole Opry they sang, well, opera. To him, her Hollywood world had questionable values. &amp;quot;I used to be pretty judgmental back then,&amp;quot; he says. Then they had dinner together \u2014 and afterward both were convinced that something important had happened. &amp;quot;Maybe two people in love always feel like there&amp;#039;s a bigger power at work,&amp;quot; says Brad, 35. Kim, 36, nods in agreement: &amp;quot;We just felt like all the events of our lives had come together for us to meet right when we did.&amp;quot; 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 \u2014 alone. And seeing Williams on-screen again, &amp;quot;I thought, She seems like a great girl \u2014 smart and funny and all those things that are so hard to find.&amp;quot; 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&amp;#039;d written about the old girlfriend. &amp;quot;It even had a song about going to Father of the Bride,&amp;quot; he says. So when the time came to cast the music video, he thought of the girl in the movie. &amp;quot;It felt natural to ask her to be in it&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Even though I didn&amp;#039;t know if she was married, divorced, or just out of rehab.&amp;quot; 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. &amp;quot;He was such a polite Southern gentleman,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I was getting impatient.&amp;quot; But from that first date forward, Brad made it clear that he was very interested. &amp;quot;I really said to myself, This time I&amp;#039;m not going to play games. I&amp;#039;m not going to pretend I&amp;#039;m somebody else, or do things I won&amp;#039;t be proud of later,&amp;quot; he says. Then he grins. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t use my evil powers!&amp;quot; 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&amp;#039;s lives, and vowed he&amp;#039;d always be there for her. Six months later, on that same pier, he surprised her with an engagement ring. &amp;quot;He proposed right in front of the public toilets,&amp;quot; says Kim, and they both crack up. Nine months after that, they were married \u2014 and since they attended different churches, their two pastors co-officiated.  In February 2007, Kim gave birth to the couple&amp;#039;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. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s our fat little man,&amp;quot; says Brad, scooping up Huck as the daddy-dazzled baby giggles and coos. Their relationship isn&amp;#039;t always so idyllic, they insist. She&amp;#039;s a bit of a neat freak, he says, &amp;quot;whereas I figure, we have a housekeeper, so it can wait till Friday.&amp;quot; Interjects Kim: &amp;quot;He comes home and it&amp;#039;s like a tornado hit!&amp;quot; But outright arguments they&amp;#039;ve learned to put to rest quickly. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s really good about not holding grudges,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;And he&amp;#039;s really good about apologizing,&amp;quot; she adds. Brad laughs. &amp;quot;I usually start with that,&amp;quot; he explains. &amp;quot;She says there&amp;#039;s this whole phrase I could say in my sleep: &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m sorry. You&amp;#039;re right. And I love you.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; It helps, says Kim, that they made a point of getting couples counseling before they got married. &amp;quot;We figured, the odds are against us because we&amp;#039;re both in entertainment,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;And we know that it&amp;#039;s really rare for couples to succeed. So we wanted to arm ourselves with as many strategies as we could.&amp;quot; From falling in love to starting a family: For Brad, personal fulfillment has had a professional payoff, too. &amp;quot;I have more to write about now,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;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 \u2014 love for Kim and love for him,&amp;quot; he says, nodding at Huck. &amp;quot;It even makes for better songs.&amp;quot; \u2014Celeste Fremon   Vince and Amy: Finding Love and Starting Over  After nearly eight years of marriage, Amy Grant and Vince Gill are living out the lyrics of the duet they recorded long before their romance began, building their very own &amp;quot;House of Love.&amp;quot; And in many ways, theirs is a romance that would be the perfect subject for a country song: Married to others when they met, they first became friends. Then both weathered scandalous breakups, and finally found their way to each other only to be faced with more obstacles.  In 1999, Amy Grant was the top-selling pop princess of Christian Contemporary music (or as Vince playfully calls her, &amp;quot;the church girl to end all church girls&amp;quot;) \u2014 so when she announced she was divorcing musician Gary Chapman, Nashville felt the shock waves. Vince and Amy started dating just a few months later, and he could see what he was getting into. &amp;quot;I was sittin&amp;#039; there going, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ve fallen in love with maybe the most famous Christian singer in history,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Vince, now 50, recalls, shaking his head at the memory.  They married almost a year later and have a 6-year-old daughter, Corrina. That was the easy part; more daunting was the task of blending their families \u2014 Vince&amp;#039;s daughter, Jenny, now 25, from his first marriage, and Amy&amp;#039;s three kids, Matt, Millie, and Sarah, now 20, 18, and 15.  Both Amy and Vince believe strongly in doing the hard work that a relationship requires, which may explain why she isn&amp;#039;t coy about the inherent difficulties they confronted, especially at the beginning.  &amp;quot;In our wedding pictures, all of the children are grim-faced and understandably so, because these were not their choices,&amp;quot; says Amy. &amp;quot;But from the start, Vince and I promised to love each other well, and in any home, blended or not, if the man and wife are loving each other well, you have a much better chance of parenting well. Vince&amp;#039;s love has empowered me to be a better mom.&amp;quot; His daughter was nearly off to college when they married, but Amy&amp;#039;s three kids were still at home. Vince was wise enough to give them breathing room. &amp;quot;When we got married, he inherited an entourage,&amp;quot; Amy says. &amp;quot;I had three children who were living under the roof with a man who was not their father. They were 7, 10, and 12, so in the evenings Vince would recede \u2014 go read, watch a game \u2014 to let them have their familiar routine with me. Then slowly he entered the picture. But there isn&amp;#039;t one issue that comes up with the kids that isn&amp;#039;t discussed from every angle by Vince and me. The one thing you have to require in a family is that everyone is respectful. But you can&amp;#039;t require closeness. That comes in its own time.&amp;quot; Amy says that it was her husband&amp;#039;s natural approach to parenting that helped the families unite. &amp;quot;What makes him so special is he treats everyone equally, and I love that about him,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;There is no pecking order. He&amp;#039;s also the greatest combination of tuxedo and blues, of elegance and rough edges.&amp;quot; Adds Vince: &amp;quot;Yeah, she loves my rough edges. It gives her something to fix!&amp;quot; With a smile, he adds: &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s nothing about Amy that&amp;#039;s phony. She is of this Earth, in the most beautiful way, and that&amp;#039;s what I love about her. Plus, she has a kindness toward other people that is so real and so engaging. It&amp;#039;s kinda intoxicating when you spend time with her.&amp;quot; Despite the astounding collection of 24 Grammys (18 for him, six for her) and more than 50 million in album sales that the two have racked up during their careers, they are determined to give their family a life that is free from the usual celebrity trappings. &amp;quot;We are normal in every way, and we don&amp;#039;t perceive ourselves to be anything but that, so we just go ahead to a restaurant, the market, without putting on airs or getting special treatment,&amp;quot; Vince says. Their union also helped him realize that there&amp;#039;s no need for professional competitiveness in their two-career household. &amp;quot;Marrying Amy made me re-prioritize some things&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;When I&amp;#039;m with her, I always feel that all I want to do is lift her up and just be a kind foundation for her to stand on, you know?&amp;quot; While Amy says that she and Vince never really have blowups, she does allow that when they &amp;quot;occasionally&amp;quot; get on each other&amp;#039;s nerves, she asks herself, &amp;quot;What is the ultimate goal here? The ultimate goal isn&amp;#039;t to win the fight, it&amp;#039;s to build a life together.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;When Vince and I got married,&amp;quot; she continues, &amp;quot;I knew the reality was when you&amp;#039;re putting two lives together, there is no riding off into the sunset. You show up with all of your baggage and all of your ghosts and all of your patterns. Whenever you start over, you can feel like a stranger in your own life for a while. But you keep making choices toward building a life together. You can&amp;#039;t demand it of each other, and if it can be done overnight, it&amp;#039;s not worth anything. But after all these years, it&amp;#039;s so interesting \u2014 we&amp;#039;ve found our footing.&amp;quot;  Clint and Lisa: A Perfect Texas Twosome  When country crooner Clint Black and glamorous actress Lisa Hartman got married in 1991 after meeting backstage at a New Year&amp;#039;s Eve show just 10 months earlier, they might have seemed an unlikely couple. Both were successful entertainers and both had gorgeous dimples \u2014 but the obvious similarities stopped there. After starring for four years on Knots Landing and in countless TV movies, Lisa was an established boldface name in Hollywood, while Clint, a hot new singer, was all about country music, with two top-selling albums under his big-buckled belt. But beneath those superficial differences, their harmonies ran deep. Lisa&amp;#039;s father was a Houston-based singer. And having been raised in Texas, Lisa is, like Clint, deeply rooted in the South.  Fast-forward 16 years, and the two are still going strong. Clint, 45, has sold nearly 20 million albums, with 32 Top Ten country hits. In 2003, he cofounded his own record label, Equity Music Group, which is putting out his new album next month. Songs include a duet by Clint and Lisa, 51. Though still primarily an actress, she occasionally performs with him. The song&amp;#039;s title: &amp;quot;You Still Get to Me.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;That song is a true story,&amp;quot; says Clint. &amp;quot;Our attraction is greater than it ever was, and our appreciation and value for our marriage and our family is greater than it ever was. I wanted the song to ring true, and to say what I tell Lisa all the time: &amp;#039;I love you now more than ever, I&amp;#039;m attracted to you now more than ever.&amp;#039; When we get time alone, I&amp;#039;m reminded of it all again. Because if you&amp;#039;re lucky, like we are, as the years go on in your marriage, it just gets better.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re making me cry, honey!&amp;quot; Lisa says in protest, sniffling a little. The song has special meaning for her, too, she says, but she won&amp;#039;t be hitting the road to perform it with him in concert. Though describing herself as more bashful than the gregarious Clint, Lisa doesn&amp;#039;t mean to suggest she no longer likes being onstage. It&amp;#039;s just that, six years ago, something happened that now makes her happy to stay at home.  For the first decade of their marriage, the couple enjoyed a pretty easygoing existence. &amp;quot;If I wasn&amp;#039;t able to make it home for a while, she could come to me,&amp;quot; says Clint. &amp;quot;When I was home, we could be muskrats and just hibernate.&amp;quot; But in 2001, after 10 years together, Lisa, then almost 45, gave birth to daughter Lily.  &amp;quot;We always loved kids, but they just weren&amp;#039;t in the plan,&amp;quot; says Lisa. Instead, they had five dogs and what Clint describes as a happy-go-lucky life. &amp;quot;Then we started talking about how we should make a conscious decision whether we would or wouldn&amp;#039;t have a child,&amp;quot; he says, and Lisa chimes in, laughing, to finish the story: &amp;quot;And once we decided, it was, &amp;#039;We can&amp;#039;t get one fast enough!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; But having a child later in life wasn&amp;#039;t easy. &amp;quot;When we finally got lucky and were blessed with a pregnancy, there was bed rest at the end and it was touch and go. But it was all worth it, because having Lily in our lives has just been amazing,&amp;quot; she says.  So what&amp;#039;s the secret to their longevity as husband and wife? &amp;quot;We continue to laugh&amp;quot; says Lisa. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve gone through our struggles, like all couples, but we&amp;#039;ve continued to keep our sense of humor.&amp;quot; Adds Clint, &amp;quot;We nurture our marriage. When Roy Rogers found out we were getting married, he said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ll give you one little piece of advice \u2014 don&amp;#039;t ever go to bed angry.&amp;#039; And he was right. What we&amp;#039;ve always done is deal with emotions and problems as they come along. Because you will embarrass each other, you will confuse each other, you will upset each other, you will hurt each other&amp;#039;s feelings \u2014 two people can&amp;#039;t live a life together without doing that. But when you come from the starting point of &amp;#039;I know you didn&amp;#039;t want to hurt me,&amp;#039; that&amp;#039;s the key. That&amp;#039;s how, at 50, you can keep from having a lot of baggage, and you can be open about things.&amp;quot; Though Clint&amp;#039;s time on the road means occasional separations \u2014 &amp;quot;E-mail helps a lot,&amp;quot; Lisa says \u2014 the couple still relish the muskrat ways they shared before Lily&amp;#039;s arrival.  &amp;quot;Even if we&amp;#039;re just laying around the house on a rainy day, staying in bed,&amp;quot; says Clint, &amp;quot;anything we do when it&amp;#039;s just the two of us is heaven.&amp;quot;  Country&amp;#039;s King and Queen If the school of country music were to crown its most popular couple, these two would take the tiaras. Trisha Yearwood, a triple Grammy winner, and Garth Brooks, who has sold more albums than any solo artist in music industry history, ended years of rumors when they went public with their romance in 2002, then wed in a private ceremony in 2005. For years the pair had been just friends, and in 1991, she was the opening act on his tour. But once Garth&amp;#039;s divorce was final, a spark was ignited, and the two stars were rarely apart. These days, they spend plenty of time with Garth&amp;#039;s three daughters from his first marriage, Taylor, 15, August, 13, and Allie, 11. Trisha has said she &amp;quot;can&amp;#039;t imagine life without them. I feel like this satisfies my desire to do the mom things. I really feel like I&amp;#039;ve got this great family and it&amp;#039;s a good, good thing.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/interviews/a17627/country-music-hottest-couples/>