Rob Lowe Remembers Stress-Free, Quiet Wedding, 33 Years After Marrying at a Friend’s House: 'It Was Amazing' (Exclusive)

In a new PEOPLE cover story, the beloved Hollywood icon and 'Unstable' star opens up about falling for Sheryl Berkoff, the love of his life

There are weddings that are big and fancy, brimming with guests and marked by pomp and circumstance.

And then there's Rob Lowe's wedding.

When Lowe, then 28 and newly sober, married Sheryl Berkoff on July 22, 1991, the smitten pair opted for an intimate ceremony at a mutual friend’s house. 

Related: Rob Lowe Is Relishing Life at 60: How the Midwest Kid Went from Brat Packer to Sober Family Man with 'No Regrets' (Exclusive)

"What was great about it was we didn't get caught up in getting a big place to do it or fancy anything," Lowe, 60, tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story that celebrates the most transformative moments of the Hollywood icon's life.

"It was very quiet. Nobody even knew they were coming to a wedding. We didn't want word to get out. It was just for us."

He adds: "I have nothing but great memories. I had no stress around it."

Lowe allows that Sheryl, 63, did most of the planning and pulled off the perfect experience within just one month of his proposal.

Related: Rob Lowe Says Getting Sober 34 Years Ago Was an 'Incremental Decision' Culminating in His 'Final Wake-up Call' (Exclusive)

"I proposed, and by the time that evening was over, she had me committed to a wedding date a month later!" he says of Sheryl, who was his makeup artist on the 1990 thriller Bad Influence. "Sheryl Lowe is a closer! It was the best wedding and an amazing day: I was sober, in love and carving out a brand-new life. I was actively walking down that path and feeling great about it, for sure."

The couple, who had their first wedding dance to the "Love Theme" from Out of Africa, soon started their family and went on to raise sons Matthew, now 30, and John Owen, 28.

Lowe says he’d actually visualized a future with Sheryl years before they walked down the aisle.

"I’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of, like they say, 'aha moments.' It's actually way above that: it's a profound, life-changing, visceral, crystalline, certain God shot [and] one of them was when Sheryl and I were on a vacation in Fiji as boyfriend and girlfriend," he says.

"They had put a little plaque on our hut where we were staying, and it said, 'Rob and Sheryl.' I was overwhelmed with visions of the future, that we were going to be together, and kids were involved."

Lowe has held onto the little sign as a keepsake from that meaningful moment all these years later.

He says: "I had an epiphany that if I couldn’t make it work with her, I couldn’t make it work with anybody."

For more of Rob Lowe's exclusive PEOPLE interview, please pick up a copy of the new issue, on stands Friday.

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