Dolly's Homemade Wedding Dress (And Why She Secretly Eloped)
On her official website, there use to be a photo from Parton’s Memorial Day 1966 elopement to Dean. The picture shows the couple standing outside the church where they were wed. The country singer’s teased-up blonde curls nod to what would become her signature lookn, but her wedding dress is a far cry from the fringe-and-rhinestone flair that’s considered quintessentially Dolly. The bride wore a sleeveless, knee-length A-line frock, paired with a short tulle veil and simple white heels.
In 2016, the hitmaker told reporters that her mother, Avie Lee Owens, made the dress for her big day (per The Boot). “We went down there, and Mom went with us, and Mom made me a white dress,” she recalled. As for where it all happened, she explained, “We actually got married in Ringgold, Ga., at a Baptist church. Inside. No people there, just the preacher and his wife, the witness, and Mama and Carl and I.”
She and Dean had met two years earlier outside Nashville’s Wishy Washy Laundromat, on the same day the 18-year-old singer moved to the city, according to a post on her website. “I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me). He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about,” she wrote.
Her future husband was similarly head-over-heels. In a 2016 statement, Dean described their meet-cute as “the day my life began,” noting, “My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl. My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin.’”
In a 2023 interview with Peachtree TV, Parton explained why she had an elopement instead of a big wedding: she wouldn’t let anyone tell her what to do when it came to love. “I had just signed a contract and the record label wanted me to wait for a year to get married, because they spent all this money. So I went that weekend and got married,” she recalled.
Elsewhere in the interview, she clarified, “I wasn’t doing it to be sassy. I was in love, and I thought…I’m not going to let somebody else dictate that. I knew that love could only help me…I never let business take over what I feel right in my heart and in my soul.” ...
