Vince Gill and Amy Grant have been married for more than 24 years, but they knew each other long before they tied the knot. The two talented singers met when Gill invited Grant to be a guest on his televised Christmas special. At the time, Grant was a reigning hitmaker in Christian music, which is why their paths had never crossed before.

“I just remember the smile,” Gill recalls to People. “That’s all I can remember. It was a staggering smile that just stopped me in my tracks. And that had never happened to me before like that.”

Grant vividly remembers how nervous she was heading into rehearsal for the TV show, and the way Gill was immediately able to calm her down.

“I just walked into the rehearsal space and Vince came over and put his arm around me and said, ‘Hey, unknit that brow, it’s going to be okay.’” Grant remembers. “I remember saying, ‘Wow, thank you for saying that.’”

At the time, Gill was married to Janis Ian, and Grant to fellow Christian singer Gary Chapman, so a romance seemed out of the question. But still, Grant had captured Gill in a way he had never experienced before, although he had no idea that Grant would one day be his wife.

“I was writing songs with a buddy of mine, and he said, ‘What do you want to write about today?'” Gill recounts. “I said, ‘Let’s write a song about Amy Grant’s smile.’ He said, ‘Do you even know her?’ I said, ‘Not very well, but she’s sure got a great smile.’”

Photo Credit: Robby Klein

The song they wrote was “Whenever You Come Around,” a hit for Gill in 1994. Both Gill and Grant later divorced their spouses, although Grant admits that neither of their spouses was surprised to see the two end up together.

“I think the energy was palpable to all of us, and we tried to be so respectful,” Grant shares. “You can’t unknow. You can’t unsee something. And years later, I have said to Janis, ‘You could have been all kinds of ways, and you were so kind to me.’ That was a hard stretch.”

“What was painful was most people assumed the worst of us, and it was not fair, and it was incorrect,” adds Gill. “You couldn’t go back and undo what people said, and what people thought … Sadly, it’s human nature in a way to assume the worst. It couldn’t have been further from the truth.”

Gill and Grant’s marriage vows were tested in 2022, when Grant was in a bike accident. Her healing, still ongoing, was long and arduous, as she struggled to recover from a serious head injury.

“He has just been so patient,” Grant tells Fox News. “Vince has a kind of way of grounding the space that we’re in even without saying a word. I think early on I said, ‘What if I’m different, what if I’m not the same?’” she. “And he said, ‘Hey, every day we wake up a little different, and we love each other, and it’s good.’”

Now, only a few months away from celebrating their 25th anniversary, Grant admits that marriage as a more seasoned adult is much easier than when she and Gill both married in their 20s.

“One thing about marrying at 40 and 43 is you don’t ever presume,” Grant reflects. “I go, ‘You’ve lived a whole life, as have I.’ You walk into everything [saying], ‘Hey, this is sort of how I’ve done this. How have you done that?’ It’d be great if people did that at 21, but it’s an easier lesson in your forties.”

Gill and Grant released their joint When I Think of Christmas album earlier this year. The two will once again return for their annual Christmas at the Ryman residency, a 12-show series that begins on November 29 and wraps up on December 21. Tickets and more information is available at Ryman.com.

When I Think of Christmas is available for purchase here.

Photo Credit:  Tracey Salazar