KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Dolly Parton plans to renew her vows to husband Carl Dean on the couple's 50th wedding anniversary in the kind of ceremony the two couldn't afford the first time around.
According to an interview with Parton in People magazine, the ceremony will take place May 30.
Parton, now a country music superstar and an accomplished businesswoman, met Dean in a Wishy Washy Laundromat on the day that Parton moved to Nashville in 1964. The two were married in Ringgold, Ga., on May 30, 1966, with only Parton's mother as a witness.
Dean and Parton rarely have been photographed together through the years and there has been much speculation about their relationship. Parton, however, always has maintained that the two have a good marriage and Dean is simply a private person with no interest in the spotlight. Dean ran his own asphalt paving business in Nashville and rarely attended Parton's public events.
In the upcoming ceremony, Parton said in People that she will have a "beautiful wedding dress" and take "a bunch of pictures."
Parton, who turned 70 in January, plans to sell the photos as part of a benefit for her charity, the Imagination Library, which gives books to children each month.
According to the interview, Parton was shocked that Dean agreed to the idea.
"My husband is a loner," she said of Dean. "He doesn't particularly care about being around anybody but me. He's just always asked me to leave him out of all this. He does not like all the hullabaloo." And yet, she adds, "he's always been supportive. He's like a brother and a father and a friend and a husband and a lover — all of those things to me. I think he's kind of proud that we've been in it this long!"
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