Celebrity Celebrity Relationships Celebrity Married Life Camila and Matthew McConaughey: How They Met The Brazilian model didn't recognize the actor at first – until his famous friend showed up By Tim Nudd Tim Nudd Tim Nudd is a former contributing writer at PEOPLE. He left PEOPLE in 2016. People Editorial Guidelines Published on August 2, 2012 08:10AM EDT Photo: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage They met at a bar in West Hollywood. But wait, it gets better. “We met at Hyde, of all places,” Camila McConaughey tells Access Hollywood, when asked how she first encountered her future husband, Matthew. But while she’d seen him in the movies and knew who he was, at first she didn’t recognize McConaughey inside the velvet-roped club. “We had two interactions at the bar,” explains the Brazilian model, 29. “The first interaction, I did not know who he was. At the time he had a really long beard, and he had this rasta hat. He was all covered up, and I didn’t really realize who he was.” PHOTOS: Who’s Due Next? But then, Lance Armstrong – McConaughey’s longtime friend – appeared. And Camila put two and two together. “Lance came to talk to me,” she says. “You knew they were always together, so I’m like, OK, I’m outta here. I’m going to the other side of the room!” Evidently, she changed her mind. And the rest is history – a son and a daughter, a storybook wedding, and a third child now on the way. With Levi now 4 and Vida 2½, Camila says it was a good time for No. 3. “After having two back to back, it takes you a while to get out of the cloud and to feel normal again and to think straight,” she says. “I was really trying to push it back as much as I could. But it was time.” Looking back on their wedding, Camila says in some ways she’s surprised she tied the knot at all – but she’s thankful she did. PHOTOS: Matthew & Camila’s Show of Love “I think it’s something that we evolved to,” she says. “I was never the girl that grew up saying I want to get married. I actually told my parents to not expect me to get married.” She adds: “The main thing for me is to make sure our home is peaceful, that it’s healthy, that the kids are good. I didn’t know how important [the wedding] was, and how really truly special it was, until I went through the ceremony.”