Just like the movies! After a high-profile marriage and subsequent divorce from Fergie, Josh Duhamel sparked a low-key romance with now-wife Audra Mari.
“Everyone told me that after you get married you feel different,” Mari exclusively gushed to Us Weekly in September 2022, shortly after exchanging vows with the Safe Haven star. “To be honest, I never really believed them and I thought it would feel the same way it’s felt being with Joshua for the last three years. But it’s much different! I feel secure.”
Mari said that she and the North Dakota native both feel at “peace” now that they’ve tied the knot, telling Us, “I just know deep down that I’ve found my forever … and that’s a really great feeling.”
Duhamel and the former pageant queen wed at Olivet Lutheran Church in Fargo, North Dakota, in September 2022, surrounded by their friends and family. Their ceremony came less than one year after the Love, Simon star proposed to Mari with a message in a bottle.
“It’s on!! She found a message in a bottle that washed ashore and said YES!! @audramari,” Duhamel captioned an Instagram photo in January 2022 alongside a snap of the pair holding up a piece of paper that read, “Audra Diane Mari, Will you marry me?”
After the former Miss World America accepted her beau’s proposal, Duhamel exclusively opened up to Us about his romantic — and spontaneous — plan.
“I just sort of decided last minute that was how I wanted to do it,” the Mighty Ducks: Game Changers actor revealed following the big day. “I didn’t have anything planned. I didn’t have a ring yet. I was like, ‘OK, you gonna do this today. Today’s the day.’ And that’s just how it all kind of happened. … I coordinated with [the hotel concierge] there to make sure that bottle was floating up to shore as we were walking out there.”
The Jupiter’s Legacy alum and the beauty queen were first linked in October 2019 after they were spotted kissing at an airport in Toronto. News of the Life as We Know It star’s budding romance came one year after his split from Eiza Gonzalez, whom he dated in 2018 for less than a year. Duhamel was previously married to the Black Eyed Peas singer, with whom he shares son Axl, from 2009 to 2017.
After a string of high-profile relationships, Duhamel opened up about living a low-key life with his new love.
“She’s a very sweet girl,” the Transformers actor told Access in January 2022. “Very similar interests — we’re from North Dakota, we love lake life. She’s got a cabin not far from mine. We just match. She’s an amazing person.”
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