“You are my best friend. My lover. My wife. My shelter in any and every storm.”
Tim McGraw wrote those words to Faith Hill on Instagram on Oct. 6, the day they marked 30 years of marriage. He signed off the post with a simple line: “I am a fortunate man.”
It has been a big fall for the couple. Tim was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on Oct. 18. Soon after, he sat down with Esquire for a long talk about his life, and the conversation kept circling back to Faith. Whiskey Riff shared the highlights on Nov. 4.
If you only know them from the radio, Tim is the Louisiana singer behind hits like “Humble and Kind” and “Don’t Take the Girl.” Faith is the Mississippi singer who gave us “This Kiss” and “Breathe.” They have three grown daughters, Gracie, Maggie and Audrey.
Tim told Esquire that a show business marriage runs on its own clock. “We always say, especially two artists, it’s like 100 years in Hollywood years.”
He also said both of them have changed a lot since 1996, and he sees that as the good part. “The beauty, I think, in a long marriage, is you get the chance to fall in love with a new person every so often.”
Their story moved fast at the start. They first met in person at a Country Radio Seminar showcase in 1994, and Faith joined his Spontaneous Combustion tour in 1996. That June, at the Country Jam festival in Grand Junction, Colo., Tim asked her to marry him one more time before he went on stage. Taste of Country reports that when he came back to his trailer, Faith had written her answer in lipstick on the mirror. It was a yes, and they reportedly still have that mirror.
Then came the hard part. They wanted a small wedding with family, and word kept getting out. “We’d try to plan it a couple of times, but everybody kept finding out about it,” Tim said.
So they gave everyone a cover story.
Family and close friends were invited to a charity softball game. Tim’s relatives gathered at his aunt’s house in Rayville, La., a small town near where he grew up. Everyone waited there for the tour bus. They expected the couple to hop off in sports gear, ready to play ball.
Tim told the rest on “LIVE! with Regis and Kelly” in 2011. “We got off the bus and all my family was there and they were prepared to play softball and we get out in wedding clothes and got married under a locust tree in my aunt’s backyard.”
Brides.com later reported that Faith wore a simple white dress with pearls, and she went barefoot. Regis Philbin wanted to know how the family took it. “You surprised everybody! Were they angry?”
Not everyone was thrilled, Tim admitted with a laugh. “My sisters were a little upset because they wanted to dress up.”
Tim’s own channel posted that 2011 visit, and it’s the same chat Taste of Country and Hello! quote for the wedding story.
Tim tells Regis and Kelly about the surprise wedding
The next spring, the newlyweds released their first big duet. “It’s Your Love” came out in May 1997 and went all the way to No. 1 on the country chart.
Tim and Faith sing their 1997 duet “It’s Your Love”
The softball game never happened, of course. The only complaint on record came from his sisters, who would have liked a nicer outfit.
Tim still remembers the spot, mostly. In his 30th anniversary post, he wrote that they married “under an old locust tree (I think).” After three decades, that little “(I think)” might be the most honest thing a husband has ever posted.