Dolly Parton Shares the Bittersweet Way She Celebrated Her Wedding Anniversary this Year
Dolly Parton revealed the "bittersweet" way she celebrated what would have been her 59th wedding anniversary to her late husband Carl Dean.
The "Jolene" singer opened up about the cathartic experience of visiting the church where she wed Dean.
Parton announced Dean passed away in early March.As Dolly Parton rang in what would have been her 59th wedding anniversary with late husband Carl Dean, she took it back to where it all started. The 'Jolene' singer recently revisited her wedding day almost 60 years later as she stopped at the church where she tied the knot with Dean—and she opened up about the emotional yet cathartic experience in a new interview.
Making an appearance on FOX News's America Reports, Parton revealed how she kept a meaningful wedding anniversary tradition going this year as she celebrated the milestone alone for the first time following Dean's death on March 3. The '9 to 5' singer revealed that the couple got married in Ringgold, Georgia, and would make the trip there every year on their anniversary since they eloped in May 1966.
'So I went down there the other day on our anniversary. And they put a big plaque up in the yard of that church where we got married. It talks about us getting married there,' Parton shared, revealing that she and her notoriously private husband would usually celebrate with a picnic there together.
"So, anyway, that's where I spent my anniversary, our first—my first—our anniversary without him, the first one," she shared. "So I thought, well, I have got to go back and just take a picture on … the same steps at that same church."
Despite celebrating her wedding anniversary alone for the first time, Paron said she felt like Dean "was there' with her—and she found little ways to pay tribute to Dean and their marriage. 'I put his wedding ring around my little gold chain and wore it," she explained. "And I wore my little original wedding rings and just stood there. And it was just so—it was just so sweet, and it made me. It was good for me.'
Parton, who met Dean when she was just 16 in a laundromat, secretly tied the knot with him just two years later with only her mom, the pastor, and his wife in attendance after getting some pushback from her former manager.
"I said, 'I've got to have momma there,'" the singer shared during a 2012 interview, revealing that their honeymoon only lasted "a few hours" and they had to go back to work the next day. "So I had bought a little dress, momma had bought me a Bible, some flowers on it. We grabbed momma and went back, and got married on a Monday, in a church."
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