What We Know About Dolly Parton & Carl Dean's Simple '60s Wedding
Dolly Parton became an icon for making hit songs and untraditional fashion choices. The Queen of Country told journalist Julie Chen that her signature style came to her when she saw "the town tramp" whom everyone called trash. As a child, Parton didn't understand why people insulted the beautiful woman. She said, "And I thought, 'That's what I want to be when I grow up. I'm gonna be trash!'" (via CBS News).
Her 1966 wedding to Carl Dean was also a pretty defiant decision. After two years of dating, Parton and Dean were engaged at 20 and 23 years old, respectively. Fred Foster, the owner of Monument Records and Combine Music, was against the singer tying the knot. "He said it'll make it so much harder if you're married with all this promotion," Parton recalled on Local 3 News. Instead of waiting for the boss's approval, the country legend married Dean on Monday, May 30, in Ringgold, Georgia, where people could wed soon after getting a license.
Although Parton was upset about Foster pressuring her out of a bigger wedding, she made sure her mom, Avie Lee Parton, was the sole guest. "I said, 'I've got to have momma there'," she recalled. "So I had bought a little dress, momma had bought me a Bible, some flowers on it." The nuptials occurred at Ringgold Baptist Church since Parton's father was Baptist, and the preacher, Don Duvall, brought his wife and a witness to the ceremony.
Dolly and Carl had a more traditional ceremony for their 50th anniversary
The untold truth about the beginning of Dolly Parton's marriage to Carl Dean makes their six-decade love story even sweeter. Their intimate wedding also didn't deter them from having a more traditional experience down the road. In 2016, Parton and Dean celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows in their Nashville home. The country legend gushed about it in an interview with People. "We're going to get married again!" she said. "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." Her longtime designer Steve Summers made the gown for the joyous occasion.
To make her second ceremony more public than her first, the singer put her and Dean's wedding attire in Dollywood's Chasing Rainbows Museum. She also sold the photos in an auction to aid her philanthropic efforts for children. "If I had it to do all over, I'd do it all over again, and we did. I'm dragging him kicking and screaming into the next 50 years," said Parton, who wrote multiple songs for her husband. "In all honesty, the only way I was able to get Carl to do any of this in the first place was that it was a great opportunity for us to raise money for some very worthy causes" (via The Boot). The couple were married for 58 years before Dean passed at 82 in 2025, and Parton died a year later at 80 years old.