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Wynonna Judd + Cactus Moser: A Love Story Years in the Making

The couple tied the knot in 2012 at Judd's farm in Tennessee.

Country music legends Cactus Moser and Wynonna Judd met for the first time in the '80s while Judd was half of the Grammy Award-winning mother-daughter duo, The Judds, and Moser was playing with the band Highway 101. Little did they know that after multiple decades, marriages, and children, they would be brought back together.

"We met while touring together in the '80s," Judd revealed to Us Weekly. "He was touring with Mom [Naomi Judd] and myself, and I was smitten then, [but] when you're touring with your mother it's kind of hard to get a date. So we went our separate ways."

But after years of friendship, the musicians reconnected and officially started dating in 2009. Sometimes you just have to wait until the timing is right and the stars align.

 

The couple tied the knot in 2012 at Judd's farm in Leiper's Fork, Tennessee. Judd's children Grace and Elijah, as well as Moser's children, Cahl, Wyatt and Sunshine, were all present for the ceremony.

 

"I didn't want it to be about anyone but Cactus and me," she explained. "Because to me, at the end of the day, it's the children, Cactus, and me... I was so concerned about making this feel special for them, everything fell away."

 Unfortunately, later that year, Judd and Moser experienced their first trial as husband and wife. Moser had his left leg amputated after a serious motorcycle accident in South Dakota.

"I went from Wyonnna the singer to Wynonna the wife, the nurse, the cook, the driver," Judd told The Boot. "We're talking real down-in-the-trenches, hardcore stuff that you don't really think you're gonna have to go to [in a marriage]."

But the couple came through the trauma stronger than ever. They even brought their personal and professional lives together to collaborate on Judd's 2016 album Wynonna & the Big Noise, with Moser on drums.

"Getting to do the musical part together, instead of separate, is a bonus," Moser told Huffington Post. "When you love what you do, and love each other, it's perfect."

This article was originally published in July of 2020.

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