In preparation for the 2015 ACM Awards, country music star Thomas Rhett released a video montage that showed how he won his wife's hand in marriage by courting her over the course of several years. The video has a not-so-subtle message: stay true to your dreams and appreciate the steps it takes to achieve them.
"Very often in life, people see the end result," reads a message at the beginning of the video. "They don't get to see the hard work that it took to get there..."
The montage, which is still adorable in 2022, opens with footage from 2005 when he and future wife Lauren Akins were simply best friends. In the subsequent footage, you see Rhett (born Thomas Rhett Akins) trying to impress the former Lauren Gregory, once as a high school football player at the homecoming game and later as an aspiring country crooner.
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It all ends with the hometown sweethearts' wedding day in 2012, along with a caption that reads "It just goes to show...you should never give up!" The couple's big day was followed by a honeymoon in Hawaii.
Their marriage culminated in a love story that began when the couple met in first grade and reached its final lap when Thomas wrote "marry me?" on a wine bottle.
Thomas released the video in an effort to gain votes to win the 2015 ACM New Artist of the Year Award. Fellow country singer and Georgia native Cole Swindell won that year, but the son of singer-songwriter Rhett Akins' star has risen much higher since then, sharing 2020's ACM Entertainer of the Year with one of country music's biggest names, Carrie Underwood.
As most fans now know, Lauren was the inspiration and star of the music video for Rhett's breakthrough hit single "Die A Happy Man." They've since become one of Nashville's most adorable superstar couples, thanks in part to their three little girls we're all watching grow up on social media: Willa Gray (adopted from Uganda in 2017), Ada James, and Lennon Love. Not to mention they have their fourth child, another baby girl on the way! Thomas Rhett is the ultimate girl dad and we love following along. Recently the country singer revealed that his ideal name for their fourth daughter would be that the same as his home state: Georgia. So, let's see if it really is that in November!
That's not to say their lives are perfect. In her New York Times best-seller Live In Love: Growing Together Through Life's Change, Lauren admits that the couple's sought marriage counseling. Which is to say, they're human like the rest of us.
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The couple recently opened up about their marriage on the podcast Live in Love with Lauren Akins and explained what they do in their marriage to "live in love." Rhett's response couldn't have been more heartfelt.
"I think living in love in marriage, and at least for you and I - and I pray this over everyone listening who is married, or dating, or would like to be married one day - I think vulnerability is so key," he explained.
"To allow yourself to be vulnerable with your wife is about the most manly thing you can do....I think being extremely confessional with your wife, I think you'll be surprised about how she will take that because I think I lived in fear for so long about being 100% vulnerable or saying exactly what I meant knowing that it probably was going to tick her off a little bit," he continued.
"I think that living in love in marriage is like being on the same page of vulnerability with each other and being as honest as you possibly can be because there's no way that they can understand you if you're beating around the bush," he added.
The couple celebrated its 10th wedding anniversary on Oct. 12, 2022.
They're the parents of four daughters who've made a habit of stealing the red carpet spotlight at the CMA Awards and other industry events: Willa Gray Akins, Lennon Love Akins, Lillie Carolina Akins and Ada James Akins.
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This story was originally published on Nov. 28, 2017.
