Seeing Rideaux from a distance was like a scene out of a movie, Harris says. “Her aura, how she carried herself. I mean, it helps that she was looking gorgeous … I had to go introduce myself.”

Three years later, Rideaux, who appeared in The Real Housewives of Potomac’s ninth season, and Harris, a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys, are set to be married.

They’re tying the knot Friday at the Hillside Estate, a lavish, 17,000-square-foot venue with a chateaulike mansion near Lewisville Lake.

“My venue is so freaking beautiful,” says Rideaux, 32. “It’s gonna be covered in thousands of roses.”

Some of the men in the bridal party were there when the couple first met in LA in 2022. Harris and Rideaux exchanged social media handles that night, and the next day their friend groups combined forces for lunch. Among the menu items, they selected raw oysters, a first for Harris, now 29.

“A lot of people would have been small-minded and like ‘I’m not trying that.’ He was like ‘You know what? Yeah I’ll try it,’” Rideaux says. “That stuck out to me.”

The two parted ways after the trip, with Rideaux, who has worked as a flight attendant, returning to Maryland and Harris going back to Kansas City, where he played for the Chiefs.

He was outright in his intentions to court Rideaux, but she wanted to take things slow.

“I didn’t know whether he was serious or just having a good time out in LA,” she says. “I kissed enough frogs. I wasn’t really in a season of my life where I wanted things that were temporary.”

They remained cordial and in contact for months before meeting up for their first date in December 2022. It was a no-frills, casual affair — a night in with Uber Eats.

“I don’t know how great of a date it was. I was really playing hard to get,” Rideaux says, laughing. Harris’ consistency and patience hooked her though. By January 2023, the two were officially dating.

Harris is admittedly reserved and laid-back, while Rideaux — no stranger to the public eye — is a social butterfly. Opposites attract, he says.

But when it comes to their faith, they’re on the same page.

Both have roots in the Bible Belt. Rideaux grew up in Oklahoma and Harris is from Mississippi. “When I thought about the person I would like to marry, I knew that he had to be a man of God,” she says.

At the start of 2023, they still lived hundreds of miles apart. They bridged the distance as often as they could, with Rideaux visiting Kansas City on her days off.

After Harris was released by the Chiefs in 2024, Rideaux says, she “knew for a fact, if this man never picks up a football again, if we go live in a small village in freaking France somewhere, I will be happy as long as I have him.”

Rideaux has brought Harris stability off the field. She keeps him on track “when things at practice might not go the best,” he says, noting she cares more about who he is than what he does.

He has family in the Washington, D.C., area and Rideaux has been a constant presence at family functions in his absence. “They’re inviting her without me,” he says. “They didn’t even need me.”

When he saw that connection developing, he knew she was the one. All he needed was a proposal date.

On Aug 3, 2024, a few days after Rideaux’s birthday, he threw her a surprise party at a D.C. soul food restaurant. The event took a month and a half to plan and was covertly organized with her friends from Oklahoma.

“The room was full of love, support, family,” Harris says. “She had no idea.”

A burn-away cake, which reveals a hidden message when lit, popped the question: “Will you marry me?”

“The look on her face was priceless,” Harris says.

The next day, Harris received a call from his agent.

“The Cowboys want to sign you, they want to bring you out, you gotta fly out Monday,” he remembers being told.

If the call came a day earlier, his proposal would have been foiled.

It was God’s timing, he says.

After their wedding, the couple has plans to travel before starting a family. Harris has two children from a previous relationship. “Six months to a year is the timeline I’ve been given,” he says, laughing, about him and Rideaux having kids.