In her new Lifetime Christmas movie, A Very Nutty Christmas, Melissa Joan Hart plays a career-obsessed baker whose heart gets broken at the beginning of the film. But in real life, the actress, age 42, has been happily married to her musician husband Mark Wilkerson, age 42, for 15 years.

"We do day dates, we do lunches, we work out together a lot," Melissa told People of how the couple keeps the romance alive. "Right now, I'm living in LA because I'm shooting a new Netflix show, and he's raising our kids in Tahoe, so I'm back and forth on the weekends. This year has been challenging so far because we're not together that much. It's a lot of phone calls, texting, and sending each other dirty gifs."

The actress, known for starring in sitcoms like Clarissa Explains It All, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Melissa & Joey, met the frontman for the rock band Course of Nature at the Kentucky Derby in 2002.

"He tried to play it all cool, but he knew who she was," Mark's sister Sally recalled to People in 2014. "I screamed and I told my friends, ‘My brother just met Melissa Joan Hart and she asked for his number.'"

Melissa was just as smitten, telling her mother she had met "the boy that she was going to marry."

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One year later, that's exactly what she did, and the preparations for their July 2003 wedding in Florence, Italy, were televised on the ABC Family miniseries, Tying the Knot.

"The most memorable part of my wedding was during the vows," Melissa said in a 2009 interview with Woman's Day. "Mark was crying so hard and we were supposed to put our heads down, but his nose had filled up! I had my grandmother's handkerchief in my cleavage, so while the priest was speaking, I reached into my dress and everyone giggled—that was the only part of the day that didn't get caught on camera."

They share three sons: Mason Walter Wilkerson (born 2006), Braydon Hart Wilkerson (born 2008), and Tucker McFadden Wilkerson (born 2012).

In recent years, Melissa has become a fixture on the Lifetime channel, appearing in—and producing—films for the network, including last year's A Very Merry Toy Store, opposite Mario Lopez.

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Taysha Murtaugh
Lifestyle Editor

Taysha Murtaugh was the Lifestyle Editor at CountryLiving.com.