Inside Hallmark Hunk Aaron O'Connell's Marriage With ANTM Alum Natalie Pack

What's more romantic than a reintroduction leading to love? That is what happened to Hallmark hunk Aaron O'Connell and former Miss California Natalie Pack. Pack, who was also a contestant on America's Next Top Model, did an interview with the designer of her wedding dress Galia Lahav to explain how they met.

"Five years ago I was briefly introduced to Aaron by a mutual friend during a Thirst Project Charity event," Pack said. "One year later, while I was in South Africa with the charity, that same friend reconnected us." With O'Connell's acting career and Pack's modeling one, she described using FaceTime to stay in touch since they both traveled a lot. (Something Pack didn't mention is that she also has some acting experience and appeared in the film "This is Our Christmas" with O'Connell, a project for which she was also the story editor.) 

Pack then told Galia Lahav about the dog they share, a Vizsla named Fig, and told her side of the proposal story. True fans of O'Connell know that he was on Tyler Perry's show "The Haves and the Have Nots." In an interview from 2017 for his Hallmark movie "With Love, Christmas," O'Connell explained how Perry helped him pull off his proposal to Pack.

According to Aaron O'Connell's "Home & Family" interview, Tyler Perry — who is also friends with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry — suggested that his own island be the location where O'Connell proposed to Natalie Pack. O'Connell told Pack an elaborate lie on how they were going to do some tourism photos and videos for Perry's island.

"So we flew her out there," O'Connell said, "and what she didn't know is that I was flying her family, her friends in so that they would all experience this proposal together." O'Connell brought the proposal video to the interview, which was taken at the end of the day after the faux tourism photos. O'Connell described feeling anxious and forgetting exactly what he was going to say before she said yes. "I had been planning this for, for months behind her back!" O'Connell said. "I had to wake up at two and three in the morning to book flights, to rush passports, to get all these people in there that don't really travel as much." However, he was stealthy enough, and she didn't even realize what he was doing.

The couple got married in July 2018, and Pack told Galia Lahav she wanted Lake Como to be the destination after doing a fashion show near there. The model reflected on the beautiful day in a July 2021 Instagram post, writing, "3 years down, a lifetime to go. I love you more and more every day @aaronoconnell."

For their fifth anniversary in 2023, Aaron O'Connell shared a wedding-day throwback photo of himself and Natalie Pack on Instagram. He captioned it, "5 wonderful years around the sun as your husband. To many more and lifetime of happiness. Happy anniversary @nataliepack," adding a white-heart emoji. The year prior, Pack and O'Connell welcomed a son named Avery into their family. Pack confirmed that he was born on August 2, 2022, on Instagram.

O'Connell talked about parenting on the "Studio 22 Podcast." He discussed how it changes your relationship. "Because you have to be on the same page," O'Connell said. "You gotta communicate." He also talked about the amazing experience of watching Avery being born. Pack didn't use an epidural, and O'Connell added, "And I'm sitting there just holding her hand, and she's going through something tougher than I've ever done in my entire life."

Like father, like son — O'Connell shared a sweet photo on Instagram in May 2023 of him holding Avery in the cockpit of a plane since flying is one of O'Connell's favorite hobbies. Pack has not shared many photos of Avery, but she mentioned him in a Mother's Day 2024 photoshoot post. Smiling alongside the family dog, Pack wrote, "Fig hung around for a few extra after Avery decided picking the lavender was far more fun. I'm one lucky mama #happymothersday."