What We Know About HGTV Star Alison Victoria's Relationship With Ex Luke Harding
HGTV star Alison Victoria might be unable to keep every aspect of her life private (for example, the scandals plaguing her Chicago-based show "Windy City Rehab"). But when it comes to matters of the heart, Victoria is far more private. Little is known about the reality star's relationships, let alone her first marriage to Chicago insurance agent Luke Harding.
Years before she became a TV personality, Victoria was the head of Alison Victoria Interiors, a consulting firm based in her native Chicago, and a second location in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she attended college. Victoria casually dated while she traveled between the two cities, but by 2011, she wanted to settle down romantically and geographically.
So, she signed up for Match.com, and that's how she met her first husband, fellow Illinois native Luke Harding. The pair wed in 2013, two years after first meeting at a Chicago Cubs game. However, by the time Victoria embarked on her HGTV career, with the debut of "Windy City Rehab" in 2019, it seemed that the romance may have been ending.
Alison Victoria and Luke Harding's connection was instantaneous
Despite the stigmas surrounding online dating — in a 2013 A Drink With interview, Alison Victoria revealed her then-fiancé wasn't too keen on their Match.com history being shared with the public — the couple's online flirtationship blossomed into a real-life romance quickly. After connecting via phone for about a month, the pair decided to meet in person at the Chicago Cubs' opening weekend. True Chicago natives, they each already had a ticket before they planned to meet. In certified meet-cute fashion, they connected at the concession stand.
Victoria told "A Drink With" that her connection with Luke Harding was unexpected but "just one of those moments where you just know." The interior designer moved from her permanent Las Vegas residence back to her hometown of Chicago, bought a house close to Harding's condo, and the couple moved in together shortly thereafter. Harding proposed to Victoria during a 2013 trip to Paris, France. By June, the couple wed in the company of 120 of their closest loved ones.
In her A Drink With interview, Victoria admitted that Harding's natural style immediately attracted her interior designer sensibilities. She commended his bachelor pad style, telling the site, "I wasn't expecting it." One year later, in a 2014 profile for Chicago Splash, Victoria said of her husband, "I married Luke because he was the guy that was my biggest fan. He's super proud" (via Distractify).
Victoria and Harding silently split in 2022, leaving Victoria to plan for a family on her own
As Alison Victoria ventured further into the public eye as an HGTV star in the early 2020s, she was making major life changes off-camera. Victoria and Luke Harding seem to have finalized their divorce by 2022 with little fanfare — a testament to Victoria's secretive love life. For the most part, Victoria kept quiet about her breakup, mentioning him only briefly in a 2022 Facebook post about her decision to freeze her eggs.
Victoria wrote of her ongoing fertility journey, "It all started when I was 28 and decided to meet with an IVF doctor to discuss my options. I met someone and decided not to go ahead with it assuming I would start a family the natural way. Well 4 years later that relationship didn't work out and I found myself single and ready to finally freeze [my eggs]." However, her second visit to the IVF clinic post-breakup was less successful, and the medical team wasn't able to retrieve any eggs.
Still, Victoria hasn't given up. Thanks to ongoing fertility treatments, the HGTV star has been able to retrieve upward of five eggs with an end goal of at least 10. Like most other aspects of her personal life, she's now keeping this ongoing egg retrieval and freezing (which she called an "insurance policy" for her future family in a 2022 People interview) to herself.