Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have been married for over a quarter of a century! As the Yellowstone prequel 1883 stars prepare to celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary on October 6, it’s worth noting that they’ve known each other for the better part of 30 years and have enjoyed a full family life with three daughters during their time together. As one of country music’s most well-known (and obviously most beautiful) couples, they’ve bucked the trend of divorces and remarriages and made every single day work for them since their surprise marriage back in 1996. “25 years later and it’s still the best day of my life. Thanks for going on this journey with me. Love you Faith,” Tim, 55, captioned an October 6, 2021, video anniversary post.
But it almost didn’t happen! “I actually asked her to marry me quite a few times and she kept saying no,” Tim said in the anniversary video. “She said, ‘I’m not going to get involved with another country singer, it’s just not going to work out.” Clearly, it did work out, and now they’ve got three adult daughters to show for it. Here’s everything you need to know about how Faith Hill, 55, and Tim McGraw met, married, and built a beautiful country music life together.
The first meeting
Neither Faith nor Tim was openly available when they first met in 1994 at Nashville’s Opryland Hotel during a country music showcase for fresh faces in the industry. The stunning blonde “This Kiss” singer was on the heels of her divorce from music publishing exec Daniel Hill, and Tim was reportedly still dating Nashville real estate agent Kristine Donahue. The musicians undoubtedly made an impression on each other, with Tim admitting to an immediate attraction in an interview. “For me, there was an intense physical attraction,” he told Billboard in November 2017. “I guess my girlfriend saw it in my eyes. She said, ‘I don’t want you around her.'”
The duo wouldn’t form an intimate connection until a couple of years later.
The first tour together
Faith joined Tim on the Spontaneous Combustion tour in 1996 as Tim’s opening act, and as they went on the road, they got serious fast. Though it was a whirlwind romance, Faith once recalled a simple moment that bonded her to him. “He knocked on my door, and he had a bowl of homemade chicken dumplings,” she told Bobby Jones in 2016. “He said, ‘I made these myself. They’re homemade from scratch.’ He had the bowl covered in aluminum foil, and he had a spoon and a fork on top of the bowl. He said, ‘I didn’t know if you liked to eat your dumplings with a spoon or a fork.’ And, he also brought cornbread. It’s difficult for a Southern man to be more thoughtful when he’s trying to court the girl of his dreams.”
Similarly, Tim told Billboard what he saw in his future wife, back in those early days. “I knew I had that instability and dysfunction in me, from the way I grew up,” he told the outlet. “And when I met Faith, I knew I needed her in my life — to keep me stable, solid and on track.” Clearly, the attraction included an element of grounding one another in reality.
Tim’s impromptu proposal
In his 2021 anniversary post, Tim recalled how he ultimately proposed to his future wife after several unsuccessful attempts. They were hanging out in a “trailer house” set up during an outdoor music festival getting while preparing to perform in 1996. “I’m getting ready to go on stage,” he said in the video post. “And I had this sort of case that had this big mirror in it. She’s standing there, and we’re talking, and I said, ‘Look, let’s get married. And she says, ‘You’re asking me to marry you at a country music festival in a trailer house?’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s pretty apropos if you think about it.’ She goes, ‘Are you serious?’ And I said, ‘Well yeah, I’m serious.’”
Faith didn’t give him the answer right away, but when he came off the stage after performing, Tim says he was surprised to see she’d answered him. “I came off the stage and went back into my dressing room and Faith wasn’t there, but I looked at the mirror,” he continued. “In lipstick it said, ‘Yes! I’m gonna be your wife.’ And we still have that mirror. And it was the best day of my life, that’s for sure.”
Their surprise wedding!
Faith was three months pregnant when the iconic duo pulled off a surprise wedding on October 6, 1996. According to Brides, the “Breathe” singer and her beau invited family and friends to a baseball game and concert, only to shock them with a wedding! The blessed event reportedly took place in Tim’s hometown of Rayville, Louisiana, and the bride wore a white slip dress, satin gloves, and a string of pearl. The blushing bride and mama to be went barefoot and looked radiant in her blonde pixie cut. Tim matched her ’90s vibe with an era-appropriate goatee, jeans, and a formal black jacket.
Faith & Tim’s house full of daughters
With formalities out of the way, Faith and Tim were about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime together — parenthood! Their first of three daughters, Gracie, (now 25) arrived May 5, 1997, in Nashville, followed by middle child Maggie Elizabeth (now 24) in August of 1998, and Audrey Caroline (20) in December 2001. The experience clearly had an impact on Faith, who spoke out earlier this year about the importance of being a parent.
“Once you’re a mom, you’re always a mom,” she told The Independent in July of 2022. “Everything I think about in my life, I think about it as a mom, period. Not as an artist or whatever, I’m a mom first.” And Tim opened up about how having all daughters with Faith has shaped his life. “Well, I am outnumbered,” he said during a YouTube premium interview, per Today. My house is full of estrogen,” he said. “I cry at Hallmark commercials. … I’ve grown up with all sisters and my mom. I didn’t really have a dad around much, and when I did have one around, they weren’t the best role models.”
Tim added heartwarming comments about how the women in his life improved him. “(My daughters and wife) have made me such a better man,” he said. “They made me see things in a different way. They taught me so much more about life, about how to be a man.”
Their 10th anniversary
Faith and Tim celebrated their milestone tenth anniversary in 2006, and by any measure, their flashy Hollywood relationship should have been long over by then. But the longtime couple continues to endure. “What makes our marriage work amid all the glare is that my husband is my best friend,” Faith told Closer Weekly in 2018. “I think about the fact that we’re married and that we raised these three beautiful daughters,” Tim added. “I mean, it’s a pretty cool thing for those girls to have her.”
Silver anniversary
Another 15 years on, Faith and Tim have continued to defy the odds in their entertainment industry relationship. “The jeans, right there on the right. I wore those jeans in the video that I shot with Tim for his single Meanwhile Back at Mama’s,” Faith told Instagram followers in 2021. “I’ve had those jeans for 13 years, and while dancing one night, recently, they split kinda right down the center of my butt.” But she’s keeping them, she said. “I’m gonna make it work, I’m gonna get them fixed.” She then continued her metaphor with a pair of red boots. “These red boots, I’ve had since I was in the seventh grade. That was in 1981. The metaphor behind all this stuff is, ya know, there’s going to be good times, bad times. Sometimes, you’re going to look your best. Sometimes you’re not. That’s just the way life is, the way the world works. And it’s all about love. Period. And respect.”
“I love you so much, baby,” she finished the post. “Happy anniversary.”