Brandi Carlile and her wife, Catherine Shepherd, first struck up a relationship over the phone — but it wasn’t long before they hit it off in person as well.
The Grammy winner and the U.K. native met in 2009 while Shepherd was working for Paul McCartney, coordinating his charity work. Carlile and her future wife spoke over the phone for a year before finally meeting in person.
The Highwomen member has a distinct memory of the moment when she realized she thought of Shepherd as more than a friend. Carlile was on tour in Vermont when Shepherd came to visit her on her tour bus.
“I hadn’t seen her for six or seven months and I had ended my [previous] relationship,” the “Right on Time” singer told Howard Stern in October 2021. “I saw her at the front door and it was like, ‘That’s it. Everything’s different. No day will ever be the same.’ I was just switched. I was totally infatuated with her, absolutely in love with her.”
The couple tied the knot in September 2012 in what Carlile described as a “falling down barn” near Seattle. In 2014, the twosome welcomed their first daughter, Evangeline, who later became the title subject of one of Carlile’s songs. Their second child, daughter Elijah, arrived in 2018.
Keep scrolling for Carlile and Shepherd’s complete relationship timeline:
