Dierks Bentley and Cassidy Black are one of country music’s most beloved — and most adorable — couples. They met as students at Ingleside Middle School in Phoenix, Ariz., in 1987, and throughout the years, they dated sporadically; however, the “Drunk on a Plane” hitmaker admits he was “way too immature” to make the relationship anything serious back then.
Bentley and Black went to different high schools, and then he moved to Nashville and she went to San Francisco. Bentley recalls, “[W]henever I was back in Arizona for an old friend’s wedding or whatever, we would kind of rekindle a little bit … we still kept trying to make it work, and it seemed like for a while there that it wasn’t gonna work, which was fine. It was just kind of sad.”
But then, when Black attended one of Bentley’s shows in 2005, she walked onto his tour bus, and he knew: He was going to marry her. The couple got engaged in Las Vegas and eloped in Mexico.
“It’s crazy to look back on it. I had no idea what I was getting into,” Bentley admits. “I was on the road 300 dates a year at that time and thought, ‘I’m just gonna get married. Found the right girl.’ But then I had to figure out what that actually meant.”
Bentley says Black captured his imagination and his heart — and even after more than a decade of marriage, she still has that magic.
“She’s a mystery to me, and that’s kind of a little bit of the intrigue, too,” Bentley says. “That’s part of what attracts me to her.”
Now with three kids, a thriving country music career and a super-busy life, Bentley and Black have their hands full. However, they’re focused on keeping their marriage strong by working at it.
“I think marriage is something you do every day. It’s not something you do and it’s over with,” Bentley says. “Every day, you wake up and you’re constantly working. It’s like a garden you’re constantly tending to that requires your commitment. There’s a lot of ups and downs. But that’s what makes it great is the experience of going through it all together. That’s my take on it. It’s not the fairy tale look at it but it’s real.”
Click through the photo gallery above to see pictures Bentley and Black through the years.
How Well Do You Know Dierks Bentley?
This Article Was Originally Posted at www.TheBoot.com
