Pick a Day

Music History Events: Marriages

February 21, 1952 A 17-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis marries his first wife, preacher's daughter Dorothy Barton, in what is rumored to be a shotgun wedding.

November 7, 1951 Frank Sinatra marries his second wife, actress Ava Gardner. The marriage, her third, lasts six years and is credited for moving Sinatra into his "mature" phase as a singer, with Nelson Riddle stating: "It was Ava who did that, who taught him how to sing a torch song. That's how he learned. She was the greatest love of his life and he lost her."

July 31, 1951 Ray Charles gets married for the first time. His bride is Eileen Williams, a beautician from Chicago. Their union lasts just one year.

October 28, 1948 In St. Louis, Missouri, Chuck Berry marries Themetta "Toddy" Suggs. They remain married until Berry's death in 2017.

December 31, 1947 Roy Rogers marries Dale Evans. They'll pen the famous Western tune "Happy Trails" just a few years later.

October 17, 1945 Hollywood starlet Ava Gardner marries her second husband, bandleader Artie Shaw.

October 8, 1935 Bandleader Ozzie Nelson marries his lead vocalist, Harriet Hilliard.

June 17, 1933 Elvis' parents, Vernon and Gladys Presley, are married.

September 29, 1930 Bing Crosby marries his first wife, Dixie Lee. The couple had 4 sons together before her death in 1952.

January 4, 1926 Songwriter Irving Berlin marries Ellin Mackay, heiress to the Postal Telegraph Cable Company. They remain married until her death in 1988.

August 14, 1837 German composers Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck become secretly engaged.

November 26, 1760 Composer Franz Joseph Haydn marries Maria Anna Keller.

December 3, 1721 Johann Sebastian Bach marries Anna Magdalena Wilcken.

July 16, 2022 Jennifer Lopez marries Ben Affleck at a quickie wedding in Las Vegas. The couple were engaged in 2002 and had a lavish ceremony planned, but they called it off. They started dating again in 2021 after Lopez' marriage to Marc Anthony and Affleck's marriage to Jennifer Garner ended.

June 9, 2022 Britney Spears (40) marries the actor/model Sam Asghari (28). Wedding guests include Madonna, Selena Gomez, Drew Barrymore, and an interloper who crashes the ceremony: Jason Alexander, whom Spears was married to for 55 hours in 2004. Spears and Asghari split up 14 months later.

July 3, 2021 Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton get married at Shelton's ranch in Oklahoma. They met in 2014 when they were judges on the TV show The Voice and started dating a year later.

September 7, 2020 Lily Allen marries David Harbour (Hopper on Stranger Things) at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, with an Elvis impersonator presiding. Their breakup in 2025 inspires her album West End Girl, which is filled with songs about cheating and deceit.

August 31, 2019 Ellie Goulding marries the art dealer Caspar Jopling at York Minster Cathedral in a wedding attended by Katy Perry, James Blunt, Princess Eugenie, and Sarah, Duchess of York.

May 1, 2019 Joe Jonas of Jonas Brothers marries Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner in Las Vegas, where an Elvis impersonator officiates. The marriage lasts until September 2023, when Joe files for divorce.

April 20, 2019 Michelle Branch marries Patrick Carney of The Black Keys.

January 26, 2019 Miranda Lambert gets married for a second time, tying the knot with police officer Brendan Mcloughlin in a secret ceremony. Lambert, whose first marriage was to Blake Shelton, breaks the news on social media on February 16.

January 5, 2019 The Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne marries Katy Weaver in his hometown of Oklahoma City. The wedding itself takes place inside a plastic bubble like the one Coyne uses to surf crowds.

December 23, 2018 Miley Cyrus marries the actor Liam Hemsworth. They split up eight months later.

December 1, 2018 Nick Jonas marries Priyanka Chopra at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, India.

September 13, 2018 Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin get married at a New York City courthouse. They keep it a secret for months, and don't have a ceremony until September 30, 2019.

August 25, 2018 Neil Young and Daryl Hannah get married in a secret ceremony in Atascadero, California. It's Young's third marriage, her first.

October 14, 2017 Kacey Musgraves marries Ruston Kelly (also a country singer) in Tennessee. He inspires her song "Butterflies," and their divorce in 2020 informs much of Musgraves' 2021 album Star-Crossed.

July 6, 2016 In a small ceremony at Peckforton Castle in Liverpool, England, Ciara marries Russell Wilson, quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks.

December 23, 2015 '80s hitmaker Richard Marx marries model and TV host Daisy Fuentes. Marx was previously married to actress/dancer Cynthia Rhodes.

June 28, 2015 Brantley Gilbert, who was once engaged to Jana Kramer, marries Amber Cochran, a teacher from his hometown of Jefferson, Georgia.