Country music is full of love songs about relationships that have stood the test of time. Fortunately, there are also plenty of couples in country music, who have sweet and enduring love stories. We picked ten of the most romantic couples in country music.
1. Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman wed in 2006. With two superstar careers, the father of two has learned how to keep the romance alive with Kidman, even with so much of their lives away from home.
“It’s two people, just trying to figure out how to make it work like any couple’s trying to figure out how to make it work,” Urban tells radio station 103. 7 KSON in San Diego. “We’ve all got our circumstances and challenges, whatever they are, and we just figure it out a day at a time. Everybody figures out what works for them. We’ve figured out what works for us. Every couple figures out what works for them.”
2. Luke and Caroline Bryan
Luke Bryan and his wife, Caroline, met in college, where sparks immediately flew. Although the two ended up splitting up and then getting back together, Bryan was clearly smitten from the moment he laid eyes on Caroline for the first time.
“It was just love at first sight, college magic,” Bryan says. “It was pretty awesome.”
Clearly, the love goes both ways, with Caroline still as in love with her husband as she was when they got married in 2006.
“Just like everyone, we have our arguments, bad days, and disagreements,” Caroline tells People. “However, we always talk out our problems. Marriage isn’t always a fairy tale! It’s a battle that both people have to be willing to fight. Each day whether we are blissfully happy or not, we fight for each other … I’ll love Luke until my last breath.”
3. Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher
Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher tied the knot in 2010, and have since become the parents of two boys. Underwood praises Fisher for being so hands-on with their two young boys, especially considering her busy career.
“Mike as a dad is just super involved in our boys’ lives, very hands-on,” Underwood tells UMG Nashville. “It takes a team, definitely, to be able to support my crazy life and Mike’s always running around doing a lot of charity things, and he’s always meeting with people. He’s on different boards and stuff like that, so we’re very much switching off duties as far as taking boys here and there to school and sports, and to all the extra-curricular activities.”
“I just love that I feel like we’re such a great team,” she continues. “I love it that he gets to now work with Isaiah on sports and things like that, and I know he loves it too. So, I think that’s one of my favorite qualities about Mike is just how hands-on of a father he is and very willing to pick up the slack when I’m crazy busy. Obviously, he’s just a very Godly father, as well. He keeps God as the center of our family and gets to teach our boys all about that, as well. So, he’s just a great guy all around.”
4. Thomas Rhett and Lauren Akins
Thomas Rhett and Lauren Akins were married in 2012, although they knew each other for most of their lives. The two were actually childhood sweethearts, with Rhett in love with Akins even back then.
“I remember seeing Lauren for the first time in second grade, and I don’t know how much in love you can be as a second-grader, but I just remember being like, ‘She is extremely attractive,’” Rhett remembers. “And then moving forward, I think the first time we ever actually really hung out was at church camp in sixth grade. There’s a hilarious photo on her Instagram page of us standing there, and I’m like a whole foot and a half shorter than her. I’ve got braces. I dyed my hair black that summer for church camp. She was always just a really kind person.”
Not that it’s always been easy. Rhett remembers a time in their relationship where they had to work really, really hard to make it work, against seemingly insurmountable odds.
“We were becoming famous at arguably the hardest moment in our personal lives,” Rhett recalls to Us Weekly. “Adopting [Willa Gray] and getting pregnant at the same time while having to be in Uganda for a year with me traveling back and forth was so challenging. I’d go to Uganda and be husband and dad, and then go to America and be like, ‘Okay, shows and music.’ I was internally imploding, and so was Lauren. We’d both come to these breaking points [feeling like] something has to give. It was not a fun time in our marriage.”
5. Luke and Nicole Combs
Luke Combs and his wife Nicole married in 2020, after starting to date in 2016. The couple, now parents to sons Tex and Beau, knew pretty early on in their relationship that they had found true love.
“I could tell she was different than anybody I had ever met,” Combs told Nashville Lifestyles.
Combs also praised Nicole when celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary last August.
“Four years ago today I got to marry the woman of my dreams,” Combs said on social media. “We have two amazing sons now and an incredible life we’ve built together. [Nicole] you have changed my world for the better in so many ways I can’t even begin to put it in words. I love you!”
6. Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO
Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO (real names: Jason and Alyssa DeFord) tied the knot in 2016, although nothing from their Las Vegas elopement hinted that their marriage would be going strong eight years later.
“She’s the best,” Jelly Roll gushed to Entertainment Tonight. “I am over the moon with that woman. I don’t see any other woman on earth but her.”
When Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO met, he was homeless, living in a van. It was his now-wife who also helped him get custody of his daughter, Bailee, whose mother was battling addiction.
“Bunnie’s like, ‘Let’s just go get a condo so you have a bedroom for her.’ I’m like, ‘Alright, cool,'” Jelly Roll recalls. “So Bunnie comes down there. We’re getting a condo. I’ll never forget, Bunnie looked at me, and man, it makes me emotional. She said, ‘No matter what happens with us, I’m gonna help you get this little girl.’… Bunnie bankrolled [it], and she never talks about that.”
7. Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani
There was very little about the start of Blake Shelton‘s relationship with Gwen Stefani that indicated their relationship would go the distance. Meeting when they both were serving as judges on The Voice, although at the time, Shelton was married to Miranda Lambert, and Stefani to Gavin Rossdale. But when they both found themselves in the middle of divorces at the same time, they bonded over their shared pain, which over time evolved into a sweet love story.
“If you would’ve told me the first season that we met that what was gonna happen, I would’ve been like, ‘No, we actually don’t even have anything to even talk about’… It’s crazy how things work out,” Shelton tells Entertainment Tonight.
When Shelton and Stefani got together, he also became a stepparent to her three sons, a job he takes very, very seriously.
“If I walked away from my career at this time, the only thing that I run the risk of is having regrets that I’m missing out on some more important things in life,” Shelton told People, when announcing his departure from The Voice. “For now, that’s our kids. This isn’t about me anymore and never will be again.
“Even though I’m a stepparent, I take that job very seriously,” he continued. “The kids see me as a very important person in their life. [When they ask], ‘Why isn’t Blake here?’ I take that stuff to heart. I’ve made plenty of money, but you can’t buy time back. I don’t want any regrets.”
8. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill got married in 1996, and have maintained a strong relationship in the almost 29 years since then.
“I am not an expert,” McGraw tells his record label. “I don’t think anybody is. Marriage is — any relationship’s tough if you don’t cultivate it, and certainly if you’re not committed to it. Love and respect are always important, but I think that knowing that there’s gonna be tough times and knowing there’s gonna be times where you don’t like each other as much, all those things are gonna happen.
“I think that it’s knowing those things are gonna be there,” he adds. “Still knowing that you’re gonna get through the other side of it and you want to be together, and this is what you want your life to look like, I think is the important thing.”
9. Kane and Katelyn Brown
Kane Brown and his wife Katelyn are not only married, but they are parents to three children, and duet partners as well. The couple released “Thank God” in 2022, and have two songs togther on Brown’s latest The High Road album,
“I love putting songs out with Kate all the time,” Brown tells CMT. “I was sad whenever she would come on stage for ‘Thank God’ and then she had to get off stage. So we ended up making it where she could come out and sing three songs, and maybe more.”
Katelyn joining Brown in concert is a sacrifice for her, since he admits she much prefers the studio to the stage.
“She doesn’t like the stage… She likes the studio,” Brown reveals on Apple Music’s Today’s Country Radio. “So, she’s always said, ‘Could we put an album out?’ I’m like, ‘You can put an album out, babe, but you’re going to have to tour it.’ She’s like, ‘I don’t want to tour it.’ I’m like, ‘Well, people are going to listen to it and they’re going to love it, and they’re going to want to see you and they’re going to want to see it live.’ So, then she gets freaked out about that.”
10. Scotty and Gabi McCreery
Scotty McCreery and his wife Gabi have been together since high school. It was Gabi who has been McCreery’s biggest cheerleader since his time on American Idol, and remains his biggest champion and supporter today.
“She’s right there in the middle of it. She’s my right-hand gal,” McCreery, who wed in 2018, says. “She hears every demo first. She hears the non-edited, work-tape version, when it’s just me and a bad vocal and a guitar. She’s really honest, and she’s great about ideas and what she’s thinking.”
McCreery has a hit single at radio right now, with “Fall of Summer,” the second single from his latest Rise & Fall album. The song, about a summer romance that ends with the changing seasons, was not inspired by McCreery’s relationship with Gabi — but it could have been.
“If me and Gabi had a ‘Fall of Summer’ love story, like one moment that was big for us, I was making records and writing songs and out on tour,” McCreery shares in a video shared on social media. “She was thinking about breaking up with me, because I wasn’t making time for her. She brought that to my attention, and it was an eye-opener for me. I realized if she’s the most important thing in your world, you’ve gotta treat her like that. From that day forward, that’s been my goal every day.”
