Dolly first met Carl Dean at the Wishy Washy laundromat in 1964, and was immediately struck him.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton says on her website. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
Two years later the couple wed in a tiny intimate ceremony attended only by Dolly’s mother, the preacher and the preacher’s wife.
Over the course of their marriage, Dean has mostly stayed in the background, allowing Dolly the freedom to embrace her career and status as a country music icon. Dolly admits that the two are complete opposites, but that’s what has made their marriage a success.
“We’re completely opposite, but that’s what makes it fun. I never know what he’s gonna say or do. He’s always surprising me,” Dolly told PEOPLE in 2015.