Dolly Parton and Husband Celebrate 50 Years of Marriage

On this day in 1966, Dolly Parton and Carl Dean said "I do" in the small town of Ringgold, Georgia.

Dolly Parton and Husband Celebrate 50 Years of Marriage
Photo courtesy DollyParton.com

On this day in 1966, Dolly Parton and Carl Dean said “I do” in the small town of Ringgold, Georgia. The couple enjoyed a private ceremony that included her mother, Avie Lee, and the preacher and his wife.

The pair wed two years after they first met, which just so happened to be the very first day Dolly moved to Nashville to pursue her music career. Their first encounter was outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat in Music City. While falling in love and getting married was one of the last things on Parton’s mind at the time, she couldn’t resist tall, dark, and handsome Dean.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” she recalls. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

To commemorate their “golden” wedding anniversary, Dolly and Carl are going to get married once again.

“I’ll have a beautiful wedding dress, ‘cause I didn’t have a big, long wedding dress when we got married and we’ve got a suit for him, so we’re going to dress up and take a bunch of pictures,” Parton told PEOPLE of her vow renewal ceremony.

The pair will sell the photos from their second ceremony and donate all of the money to Parton’s Imagination Library, which provides books to young children.

Happy Anniversary, Dolly and Carl!