Kimberly Perry Waited 'Maybe a Week' to Tell Husband Johnny Costello She Loved Him (Exclusive)

"I would've always told you that love at first sight was a very irresponsible thing, probably because I had never experienced it for myself," says the singer

Kimberly Perry knew husband Johnny Costello was the one the moment she saw him.

The Band Perry alum, 39, who is expecting a baby boy in August with Costello, first met her now-husband at a brunch in Dallas, Texas, in October of 2020.

The rest is history.

"I would've always told you that love at first sight was a very irresponsible thing, probably because I had never experienced it for myself,” she exclusively shares with PEOPLE. “But I'm just telling you that when we met, I immediately knew that I was in love with him.”

Related: Kimberly Perry on Arriving at First Solo Project: 'It's No Secret That There Were Highs and Lows' (Exclusive)

Perry even recalls how Costello had such a physical and emotional presence in the room.

“He's 6'5", blue eyes, blonde hair. But it was also his spirit that just felt really aligned with mine. He felt like a really secure person, and he felt like somebody who I was willing to shake up the pieces of my life with because he was trustworthy,” she says.

While the old adage of “you’ll know when you know” rang true for Perry, it also posed an unexpected challenge: She couldn’t wait to tell Costello how she felt.

"I did discipline myself for the first 48 hours. I was like, ‘Don't tell him you love him! Do not say I love you.' So I waited for maybe a week, but it was a really hard thing for me to not immediately just go, ‘Let's just spend our entire lives together,’” she says. “I was just so in from the minute we met.”

Costello was all in, too, reveals Perry, as the pair began having meaningful conversations about their future right away.

“After the first week I was like, ‘If we ever have a child, we should name them this.’ We immediately got onto and into the things that we wanted to develop and really grow in our life together,” she explains.

The couple, who have been married since 2021, now plan to name their son Whitaker James.

Related: The Band Perry's Kimberly Perry Reveals She Secretly Married Johnny Costello in June: 'Wild and Wonderful'

“It just never crossed my mind that we would have a boy, but on New Year's Eve, I was craving nachos, I was craving chips and salsa, all these very spicy foods, and I just instinctively felt like we were having a boy. I couldn't even picture it being a girl," Perry recalls. "And I said to Johnny, ‘We don't have any boy names selected, so we're just going to sit here in the turn of the year and just find a name that we both love.’”

Perry googled a list of “beautiful boy names” and spotted Whitaker at the top of the list. Both she and Costello (not unlike how they met) loved the name immediately, and they plan to call the baby Whit for short.

“And then James comes from my grandfather, and Johnny's grandfather's middle name was James as well. So, it felt like a strong masculine name to bring forward,” she adds of the baby’s namesakes.

In the end, Perry, who was married to former MLB player J.P. Arencibia for four years before the pair split in 2018, says that her past relationships ultimately helped show her what she wanted in a life partner.

“I think [Johnny and I] had both come from relationships that we knew weren't right for us," she says. "So we had ruled out a lot of the things that we knew that we didn't want, and it finally felt like the stars had aligned and God had really just dropped this little blessing in front of each of us. I was like, ‘Oh, that's my person.’”

For more on Kimberly Perry, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.

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Read the original article on People.