Jennifer Love Hewitt Is 'Proud' of 11-Year Marriage to Brian Hallisay: 'That’s Like 190 Years in Hollywood' (Exclusive)

Jennifer Love Hewitt is relishing a recent milestone.

On Nov. 21, the 9-1-1 actress, 45, and her husband, actor Brian Hallisay, celebrated 11 years of marriage.

"That's like 190 years in Hollywood," Hewitt jokes in this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. "I'm really proud of the family we've made together. I'm proud of us."

Though they first met on the set of Love Bites in 2011, Hewitt and Hallisay, 46, didn't start dating until a year later, when they reunited on the set of the Lifetime series The Client List in 2012.

"I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life," Hewitt recalls. "I said to my manager and friend at the time: 'I'm going to marry that man, and I'm going to have his children.' She said, 'Sweetheart, I think everybody thinks they're going to marry that man and have his children.' I was like, 'Yeah, but I'm going to do it. Just watch.'"

Related: Jennifer Love Hewitt Shares Sweet Photo with Husband Brian Hallisay for 11th Wedding Anniversary: 'This Is Us'

While it was love at first sight for Hewitt, she says it was more of a "slow burn" for Hallisay.

"I don't know that it was instant for him," she says. "But it was instant for me, and it wasn't just what he looked like. He was kind and he was good and close with his family and he was smart. We just had fun, and I was smitten. I got lucky enough to end up with him. And guess what? I did marry him, and I did have his kids."

Five days before their daughter Autumn's arrival in 2013, Hewitt and Hallisay got married in the backyard of their home in Los Angeles. When they moved houses in 2020, they decided to have another backyard wedding at their new abode, and this time their daughter and their son Atticus, now 9, got to serve as witnesses.

"It was very sweet, and it was so great for our kids to be there and have that as a memory," Hewitt says. "They talk about it all the time, which I love. It was during [the height of] COVID, so we were just grasping for magic at that time. It really did become a magical time for us."

Related: Jennifer Love Hewitt Learned Her Mom Died from the Press: 'I Didn't Get a Goodbye Moment with Her' (Exclusive)

In 2021, the couple welcomed their youngest son, Aidan, 3.

"We, I think, struggle like most parents with three kids and full-time jobs and all of the things to find our time, but I really do wake up and choose Brian every day, and I would choose him every time," Hewitt says. "I genuinely feel that way, even when he makes me crazy. And he continues to choose me, thank God. I am always so profoundly happy that my kids are half him."

Hewitt and Hallisay got to fall in love all over again while starring together in the new Lifetime Christmas movie The Holiday Junkie, premiering Dec. 14. It was inspired by the actress' love of the holidays and her journey with the grief of losing her mom, Pat, at 67 in 2012.

"It was really fun to be in a movie honoring my mom with Brian because he does such a great job of honoring her in our life, even though he only met her once," Hewitt says. "So it was special having him there. It's like our little Christmas love letter that we'll always have."

Related: Jennifer Love Hewitt Wants to 'Make Magic Again' at Christmas in Lifetime's The Holiday Junkie Trailer (Exclusive)

Hewitt is also excited to share her mom's story in her new book Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical.

"Now, having written the book and doing the movie, I feel so much closer to her in some weird way because I feel like she is watching and knows that she's being celebrated on such a big level," she says. "I'm really grateful for that, and it's really put the grief in a new place."

The Holiday Junkie premieres on Saturday, Dec. 14 a 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

Read the original article on People