And within 18 months, she would walk into a television studio in Nashville and hand her private life over to a man who would spend the next seven years telling her what to sing, what to wear, who owned her songs, and how much of herself she was permitted to keep.
There was no honeymoon.
She had a radio appearance in Nashville the next morning, so they drove back.
That is the marriage in one line, delivered in the first 24 hours.
She has said for decades that Carl understood she had come to Nashville to do a job and never asked her to stop.
True enough, but understanding is not the same as participating.
And later that same year, he made the terms explicit.
He went with her to one awards ceremony in 1966.
Afterward, by the account she repeated for the rest of her life, he told her he loved her, he would support her career any way he could, and he was not going to any more of these damn things.
He largely kept his word for 59 years.
Now watch what she built on top of that promise because most people hear it as charming rural stubbornness.
It was closer to a treaty.
He got total exemption.
