Happy 6th Anniversary, Luke and Nicole Combs: The Love Story Behind Country Music's Biggest Star

Today Luke and Nicole Combs celebrate six years of marriage. If you want to understand who Luke Combs really is, the story of how they got here is the best place to start.

They first met in 2016 at a music festival in Florida. Nicole Hocking had grown up in Fort Myers, studied civil engineering at Florida Gulf Coast University, and moved to Nashville to work at BMI as a recruiting coordinator. Luke Combshad no record deal, no hits, and was still figuring out how to make the dream work. "I met my wife before I had anything going on," Combs told ABC Audio. "I was driving the same car I drove in high school and had no shows."

None of that mattered to Nicole. She fell in love with him when he was a starving artist, which says everything you need to know about her. They hung out all night at that festival and the rest is history. Two years later, Combs announced their engagement on Instagram with characteristic self-deprecation. "She said yes a while ago, but this is a way better place to take pictures than the kitchen," he wrote alongside a photo of them in front of a sunset.

He proposed on the day they moved into their first house together, surrounded by moving boxes. That is exactly the kind of detail that belongs in a country song, and Combs has never been shy about how much Nicole has shaped his music. "Beautiful Crazy," "Better Together," and "Forever After All" all drew directly from his relationship with her, with "Beautiful Crazy" becoming the first dance at their wedding, a song he wrote about her before they were even dating.

On August 1, 2020, they tied the knot at their home in southern Florida in a small beach ceremony. The pandemic had forced them to cut roughly 70 percent of their guest list. Hurricane Isaiah threatened to derail the day entirely but the ceremony went off without a hitch. Luke wore a light blue button-down and a dark blue blazer. Nicole wore a white dress with embroidered flowers and a tulle skirt. "Yesterday was the best day of my life," Combs wrote on Instagram. "I got to marry my best friend. I love you, Nicole Hocking. Here's to forever." He later admitted he had no idea how hard he was going to cry. "I was doubled-over crying guy," he said.

They are now the proud parents of two sons, Tex Lawrence, born in 2022, and Beau Lee, born in 2023. Six years in, the story Luke tells about Nicole has never really changed. She was there before any of it existed, before the number ones, before the stadium tours, before the record books. She fell for him when he was driving his high school car and had no shows on the calendar, and she has been in his corner every step of the way since.

On their fourth anniversary he put it simply: "You have changed my world for the better in so many ways I can't even begin to put it in words."

From a starving artist with no shows to one of the most dominant careers in country music history, all of it built alongside the woman he met at a music festival before any of it existed. Happy anniversary, Luke and Nicole. Listen to Luke’s full audio biography here for more.