Linda Wallem: Wife Melissa Etheridge Made Me the 'Luckiest Girl'

Melissa Etheridge‘s wife Linda Wallem loves being a newlywed.

“Even though we’ve been friends all these years, she will still grab me in the kitchen and we’ll slow dance to whatever’s playing,” the entertainment executive told PEOPLE at the 17th Annual Grammy Foundation Legacy Concert on Thursday in Los Angeles.

“And if there s no music playing,” she added, “she will sing into my ear, and it will make me feel like the luckiest girl.”

Etheridge, who tied the knot with longtime friend Wallem last spring, may love whispering sweet nothings into her wife’s ear, but her 8-year-old twins aren’t so impressed.

“We kiss, and the kids say, ‘Break it off!’ ” Wallem said. “They come in between us, and we end up making a sandwich.”

The stars, who both turn 54 on May 29 (the same date as their wedding anniversary!), are very much the romantic types. Etheridge even serenaded her wife at their wedding with a song she wrote for her, “Who Are You Waiting For.”

“That song destroyed me. It was our vows,” Wallem said, joking, “I almost broke up with her, it was so overwhelming.”

” ‘Who Are You Waiting For’ is about how one can be a friend,” Etheridge explained. “And then one can think that they’re not very good at love and they should stop, and it’s a question of, ‘Who am I waiting for?’ ”

So what’s Etheridge’s favorite part of being married?

“We are legally recognized, and our kids are legally recognized as a family,” she said.

Etheridge performed with Aloe Blacc and closed out the concert, held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, with classics “I Need To Wake Up” and “Lean On Me.”