Inside Dave Haywood and Kelli Cashiola’s Picture-Perfect Love Story

It would be easy to assume that Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood and his wife Kelli Cashiola rushed into marriage (they went public with their relationship and were engaged about a month after), but that wasn’t the case at all. Haywood and Cashiola’s relationship blossomed after several years of friendship, and it’s something that Haywood is very thankful for.

“I really thought she was cute and we had a lot in common, but we didn’t date for probably four or five years,” Haywood explains. “We were friends. We’d go on trips together with different groups of friends. And so we really had a great foundation.”

After a date to one of Nashville’s most popular steakhouses, Kayne Prime, Haywood and Cashiola were officially an item. After that, Haywood says they “fell hard and quick.”

“Once we got together, we got engaged within a really short time, got married really quick because we knew each other so well,” the Georgia native shares. “Having that foundation of knowing each other for five, six, seven years was really just a beautiful thing.”

Haywood pulled out all the stops when proposing to Cashiola, who was Vice President of Marketing / Brand Management for Warner Music Nashville at the time. He picked her up from her office, handed her a blindfold and then drove home. When they arrived, she took off her blindfold to find where Haywood had spelled out “will you marry me?” in Christmas lights.

The wedding, which was reportedly “straight out of a movie,” took place April 14, 2012 at Front Porch Farms in Ashland City, Tennessee. Dave Barnes provided the music for the nuptials, while Haywood’s bandmates, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott, attended the ceremony.

The couple has two children; Cash Van (born 2014) and Lillie Renee (born 2017).