Toronto interior designer Ali Budd went from an office in North York to a Home Network reality TV show starring luxury properties across the city (the second season of House of Ali just premiered on StackTV). We got her better-than-the-movies story of meeting her husband, Martin Ware.
How they met
I found myself all of a sudden divorced with two babies, and I’d just lost my father. It was an incredibly tough time. Later, I was sitting in my friend’s backyard and I said, “Am I ever going to be happy again?” She said, “OK, let’s look at our calendars. Today is July 11. Next July 11 you’re going to be happy.”
The next year, I’m on a girls’ trip in Vegas, and there’s this huge group of British dudes at the hotel. Some of the single girls in the group start talking to them, and I was sitting back and watching all of it. I pointed to my now-husband Martin and said to one of the girls, “See that one? He’s the hot one. He’s not in everyone’s faces. That’s the one you should go talk to.” We go out that night, we come back, and a few of the guys are there. Martin and I start chatting. That was on July 11.
The relationship
I thought it was going to be a fun love affair weekend — he’s 29, he lives in England; I thought it wasn’t going anywhere. But I really liked him, and we stayed up until 5 a.m. talking. It was a little heartbreaking when I left. I got home, and he starts calling me. I had told him, you know, I’m a single mom. My kids are crying in the background. What the f**k are you doing? He said, “I love kids, you can’t scare me.” He kept saying, “I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ve never felt like this.” I thought it was insane, but he ended up flying to Canada for two nights to see me in August. Everyone thought I was completely nuts, except for my mother, who was like, “Just do what feels right for you. Life is so short.”
By November, he moved to Canada. Obviously I have my kids, so he moved into my godmother’s Toronto apartment, who lives in Geneva. My kids became obsessed with him overnight, and he met my ex-husband because that was the deal with my ex. We got engaged the following March, and we were married by August.
The proposal
For context, I used to call my husband Chris Harrison as a joke for a long time. We went to Banff, and I had a feeling we were going to get engaged. We’re driving — it’s our last day there — and he gets a call and gets agitated, which is so unlike him. He’s like, let’s just go back to the hotel for a bit, and I knew something was going on. Apparently, Chris Harrison had booked a helicopter to fly us to the top of the mountain where a cheesy rose ceremony was waiting, and they called him because it was too cloudy. I’m not a cheesy person, so I would have been so awkward! We ended up going on a beautiful hike, and he asked me to marry him. I was like, “I can’t believe this is my life.”
The wedding
He wanted a big wedding; I wanted to be Britney Spears in Vegas. We compromised and got married at Toronto city hall in August. It was quite beautiful and I had zero expectations, which is unlike me, because I’m usually so controlling about everything design-related, of course. We had planned an engagement party for that night, and when everyone got there, we were like, “Surprise! We got married.” My parents also got married at city hall, and my mom wore red. So I did too, at the reception.
The kids
I’d always wanted a lot of kids. I had two with my ex, and at the time he was like, “That’s it, we’re done.” Anyways, my dad was dying, and I was sitting with him, and I was pregnant with my son. And he looked at me, and he’s like, “That’s going to be a boy, and there’s going to be one more.” And I was trying to tell him, we’re not having one more, this is it. And he just said, “There’s one more coming.”
And in April 2020, I had my youngest, Jemma, with Martin. And now, my ex-husband, Josh, and his wife, Erin — she’s one of my closest friends — live on our street, and we raise the four kids together (Jemma; my kids with Josh, Joey and James; and Josh and Erin’s daughter, Bella). We don’t believe that our kids should have two different lives. And Martin has been so incredible; he comes from a divorced family as well, and he wanted to put all the kids first and give them a family.
The secret to success
I actually created a game called Points for myself, and it’s kind of my marriage philosophy. Every time Martin would do something that really annoyed me, but that was stupid, like leaving his towel from the shower on the bed, I would collect points for myself. If I didn’t say anything to him, if I just let it go, then I’d make up the number of points based on how irritated I was. Then when I got to a certain amount of points, I bought myself a gift. So that’s one piece of advice!
But really, it’s about letting s**t go and knowing when you’ve been an a**hole yourself. And co-parenting with four parents is a massive advantage from a scheduling perspective. I have a wife now!
The future together
I am a very superstitious Jewish person, so honestly as long as we’re together and my children are healthy, I don’t care.