There are a lot of power couples in the music industry but they’re maybe not as enduring and in love as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. These two successful artists have been married for more than two decades already. They have collaborated with so many songs and have toured together for most of their marriage. But how did these country singers ended up together?
Sparks flew in the year 1996 when Hill has opened for McGraw during his “Spontaneous Combustion Tour.” However, during this time, McGraw was just fresh from his engagement break up with Kristine Donahue while Hill was engaged to record producer Scott Hicks.
But love knows how to find its way! Hill realized that the chemistry between her and McGraw was too great to let it pass, so she decided to break up with Hicks. In her interview with PEOPLE, Hill said: “If someone is going to judge my character because I was engaged to somebody and then I left him for somebody else — ‘Oh, okay, now she’s a slut and a bad person’ — I can’t control that. But I wasn’t about to let Tim slip through my hands.”
And just a few months of being together, McGraw proposed to Hill to which she said yes. Some may think this was a rush but the couple knows better. On their 19th anniversary, McGraw shared with his audience in his Colorado show how he had proposed to his wife.
We were in the dressing room, here, June 26, 1996, and it was raining and stuff and we’d been on tour for a while together, and I joked around with her about getting married. And so I said … I looked at her, grabbed her by the hand, and dropped forward [on my knees] onstage. She had already done her show. And I said, ‘I’m really serious. I want you to marry me.'” The songstress laughed in response. “She said, ‘We’re at a country music festival in a trailer house, and you’re asking me to marry you? And I said, ‘Yeah. So I went onstage.
“I had in my dressing room… this foldout case that had a mirror in it that was my dressing armoire,” McGraw continued. “When I came back offstage, [I saw] a Sharpie with lipstick kisses all over it, saying, ‘Yes! I’m gonna be your wife.’ It had, ‘I love you’ with big lipstick kisses. And this is the place right here.” What’s even sweet is that McGraw still has that mirror to this day.
The two did not wait long to say I do. On October 6, 1996, they pulled off a surprise wedding. The couple invited their friends to what they thought would be a softball game and concert in McGraw’s hometown of Rayville, Louisana.
McGraw and Hill surprised everyone as they stood beneath an oak tree with a minister and ready to exchange vows. Hill was already three months pregnant at the time of their wedding. When their first daughter, Gracie McGraw was born, they also released their first single together titled “It’s Your Love”, which has been the No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart for six weeks straight.
Ever since then, the couple were inseparable and managed to keep their relationship strong. “It’s an accomplishment,” McGraw said. “In our business, it’s really probably like 80 years. You know, it’s like I look at it as dog years!”
When asked what their secret to marital success is, Hill said:
You just got to have fun. You know, laughter is sexy. Sometimes, in the midst of craziness, everyone gets in an argument. That’s part of growing as humans. That’s part of growing as a couple. You just have to let some things roll off your shoulders and just move on and keep going holding hands. You’re climbing up the mountain together. You just have to have a little fun. We just kind of are guests here on this earth and we just really should enjoy it.