"When he was repeating a few of the vows to me, I started to cry" - When Pete Sampras' wife Bridgette Wilson opened up about their moving wedding
After dating for nine months, Pete Sampras married former Miss Teen USA Bridgette Wilson in September 2000. The pair became engaged in June that year, while Sampras was in the middle of a hectic tennis tour and Wilson was starring in movies like 'Beautiful,' 'The Wedding Planner' and 'The Street' TV series.
On September 30, days after Sampras reached the final of the US Open and lost to Marat Safin, the pair wed in an intimate wedding ceremony. Talking about the ceremony in an interview with InStyle later, Wilson said that one of her favorite moments was when she walked down the aisle and got to look the 14-time Grand Slam champion in the eye.
She also admitted that she was so moved by the American repeating his vows to her that she started to cry in the middle of the wedding. Having glided through the evening, both Sampras and Wilson felt that the ceremony turned out to be "perfect" later, with Wilson chiming in that it was everything they had hoped for.
"The moment I loved was when I was walking down the aisle and I got to look Pete in the eye. And when he was repeating a few of the vows to me, I started to cry," Wilson said.
"I just sort of glided through the evening. But after it was all over, Pete and I looked at each other and said, 'This is perfect.' It was absolutely everything that we could have hoped for," she added.
Bridgette Wilson also recalled dancing to 'I Love you Enough to Let You Go' with her father on the night, another moment that made her cry her eyes out seeing the amount of trust he had on Sampras to take care of his daughter.
"I was crying my eyes out," Wilson recalled. "It was that moment of acknowledging that he's trusting Pete to take care of me and the family we raise together."
"I'll always have Bridgette, that's the biggest reward of all" - Pete Sampras
Pete Sampras also spoke about his marriage during the interview, pointing out that the life-long commitment was different from the "short-lived high" of match wins he was used to.
The former World No. 1, knowing that tennis would stop one day, considered his wife Bridgette Wilson the "biggest reward of all."
"When you win matches, it's a short-lived high," Pete Sampras said. "This was something I was committing to for life. Tennis will one day stop, but I'll always have Bridgette. That's the biggest reward of all."
Pete Sampras and Wilson have two sons, one born in 2000 and the other in 2005, and currently reside in California.