Camila Avles McConaughey celebrated a big moment with husband and actor Matthew McConaughey. The Women of Today founder and her Academy Award winning hubby celebrated their eight year anniversary on Monday, June 10. The proud mamá-of-three paid tribute to one of the biggest days of her life with moving message that she shared on her Instagram page with her fans. In the message, she opens up about how marriage wasn’t something that she saw for herself until the fateful day that she met Matthew back in 2006. She shared how as a young adult she didn’t see it as a possibility (even told her parents) but that after meeting Matthew all of that changed for her.

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In her commemorative post, she said, “Yep...you got me baby...! Taking a minute in the mist of everything to share gratitude for you on our anniversary. As a young adult I never thought of marriage, I always told my parents don’t ever expect me to get married!!” But when she met Matthew, and they later began their courtship, her views on what was possible changed for the better. “Well...you fully changed my perspectives and the meaning of it...🙏🏽 I encourage you today to take a minute to share gratitude to your partner in life, shine the light on what you love about them and how they make you better! If you don’t have a partner take a minute to share a light on yourself and what qualities you love about yourself that you want to show more to the world,” she revealed.

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But Camila isn’t the only one that has shared about how life changing her encounter was. Matthew has spoken out about it in the past as well. In an interview with Cigar Aficionado, Matthew revealed how his clock was ticking when he met Camila (he was 37 at the time), but how he didn’t want to rush his plans to become a husband and a father because he had too often seen what would happen when men did.

He explained, “I was about to be 40 and my plan was to be married and have kids by that age. But I didn’t want to play the game of starting to feel anxious because with too much anxiety you can’t find a mate. I knew men who had made hasty decisions and women who had done the same thing. But at that point, I wasn’t hunting.”

Then one day, as he’s out on a ‘boy’s night’ making margaritas for his friends, he sees Camila (then 24 years old). “And then this amazing woman walked across my field of vision, and I thought, ‘Who is that?’ And it was Camila,” he continued. He detailed how it was essentially an ordinary night until the Brazilian beauty appeared — the rest was history.