Nicole Kidman had known Keith Urban for less than six months when she knew.
“It was my [38th] birthday, and he stood outside with gardenias at 5 a.m. on my stoop in New York,” Kidman, 51, tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s cover story.
“That is when I went, ‘This is the man I hope I get to marry.’”
Urban, 51, took her to Woodstock, N.Y., the site of the 1969 music festival, on a motorbike for a getaway (“My kind of guy!” she says), and she’s never looked back.
“It was pretty intense,” says Kidman, whose gritty drama Destroyer will be released wide this month. “I believed by that point he was the love of my life. Maybe that’s because I am deeply romantic, or I’m an actress, or I have strong faith as well, but I just believed, ‘Oh, okay, here he is.’”
The two married a year later at a romantic wedding in Manly, Australia, and have since settled down in Nashville, where they’re happily raising their two daughters, Sunday, 10, and Faith, 8.
For his part, Urban was always equally smitten with his Oscar-winning bride. He tells PEOPLE, “I could sum up Nic as a wife, mother and human being in three words: She’s all heart!”