Tim McGraw fell for Faith Hill “in an instant” when he first saw her in 1994, but they didn’t start dating until two years later.

The country artists first met at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville in the spring of 1994. Both were in relationships at the time, with McGraw dating Kristine Donahue and Hill engaged to Scott Hendricks.

Two years later, when Hill joined McGraw on his Spontaneous Combustion tour in 1996, the two fell in love. McGraw later told people that they were young, silly, and deeply in love.

The couple engaged, married, and became pregnant within a year. McGraw and Hill have been together for more than 25 years and have three daughters: Gracie, Maggie, and Audrey.

The family has a deep friendship, and McGraw has frequently praised Hill for being his anchor, particularly for helping him remain clean after realizing he had an unhealthy alcohol addiction.

My wife often tells me, ‘You’re not afraid of anything.'” I respond, “You’re not afraid of anything.” “I didn’t know love could feel this good.” Was it an emotion? Was it a lifestyle? Was it an imagined event? But love encompasses all of those qualities.”

So, how did Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s romance start? How they met and fell in love is all here.

McGraw and Hill met while attending a Country Radio Seminar presentation for young talent in Nashville. They shot their first picture together that day backstage at the “New Faces” concert, McGraw said in a tribute to his wife on their 27th wedding anniversary in October 2023.

McGraw revealed on the Bobby Bones Show that his girlfriend at the time “didn’t know” whether she wanted the singer to “say hi” to Hill anymore, claiming that she noticed the two had chemistry “immediately.”.

McGraw revealed on the Bobby Bones Show that it took “a bunch of times” to persuade Hill to go out with him, but the most memorable moment was the first time he “legit” asked her, Hill claimed.

On the show, Hill turned to McGraw and said, “You brought me chicken and dumplings; you came to my house, and you didn’t announce that you were coming. He knocked on my door, opened it, and handed me a bowl of homemade chicken and dumplings, declaring, ‘I made these myself; they’re homemade from scratch.'”

She observed that he had both a spoon and a fork on top of the aluminum foil-covered bowl, explaining that he didn’t know which utensil she preferred to use to eat her dumplings and had therefore provided both.

“Hey, look, you compensate for your weaknesses,” McGraw said.

Following their first meeting, the two country singers reconnected in 1996, when Hill joined McGraw on his Spontaneous Combustion tour. Despite Hill’s engagement at the time, she and McGraw quickly ended their relationships and started dating.

“If someone is going to judge my character because I was engaged to somebody and then I left him for somebody else… I can’t control that,” Hill told the magazine PEOPLE in 1998. “But I wasn’t about to let Tim slip through my hands.”

Both subsequently revealed on The Bobby Bones Show that their first formal date was at a concert.

On their 25th wedding anniversary in October 2021, McGraw recounted how he proposed to Hill on June 26, 1996, calling it the “best day of my life.” While she eventually said yes, Hill was originally hesitant to marry McGraw because she was concerned about being with a country star.

“We had dated for a while,” McGraw reminisced. “I asked her to marry me several times, but she kept saying no. She declared, “I’m not going to engage with another country artist; it’s just not going to work out.”

However, McGraw eventually proposed to Hill in his dressing room at a country music festival, hoping she would accept.

“She said, ‘We’re at a country music festival in a trailer house, and you want me to marry you?'” And I said, ‘Yes.’ So I got onstage. When I returned offstage, I noticed a Sharpie with lipstick kisses all over it, saying, ‘Yes! I’m going to be your wife,'” he recalled.

Hill had scrawled her acceptance of his proposal on the mirror, and the couple still keeps it in their house.

Hill and McGraw married four months after becoming engaged on October 6, 1996. The two planned a surprise wedding, inviting their family and friends to what they believed would be a softball game and concert in McGraw’s birthplace of Rayville, Louisiana, but it turned out to be the couple’s nuptials.

“We had to try to plan it a couple of times, but everyone kept finding out about it,” McGraw explained on LIVE! with Regis and Kelly in 2011 about why they opted to surprise their family with the wedding.

His entire family, he explained, had prepared for a celebrity softball game, but when they stepped out of the van, Hill and McGraw wore wedding attire. The pair took their vows beneath a locust tree in his aunt’s backyard.

The singer of “My Best Friend” admitted that his sisters were “a little upset” because they wanted to “dress up,” but everyone else was happy.

Over a quarter-century later, the couple has three adult daughters: Gracie, Maggie, and Audrey. McGraw and Hill had Grace on May 5, 1997, and Maggie on August 12, 1998. They completed their family three years later, on December 6, 2001, when their daughter Audrey was born.

The children have been on countless red carpets with their parents throughout the years, and McGraw and Hill continue to be proud of them.

“It’s inspiring to me to watch them go out on their own and do the things they do,” McGraw told PEOPLE in 2021 about his daughters. “We’ve raised three strong, independent, and strong-minded young ladies. The fact that our kids are normal, grounded, and respectful of themselves and others makes me grateful. It makes me feel like we did a fantastic job, especially Mom.