Reba & Narvel: The Way They Were

Glowing like the newlyweds they are, country singer Reba McEntire and husband of about two years, Narvel Blackstock, arrive at the 63rd Annual Academy Awards in 1991. Blackstock played guitar in McEntire's band before eventually becoming her business manager.

That same year – and with the same early '90s style – the couple gets all dressed up again for the 26th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, where McEntire scores trophies for both Top Female Vocalist and Video of the Year.

Ahead of a 127-date tour, the Blackstocks band together for a 1993 press conference. That year McEntire keeps her schedule packed with a TV movie, Is There Life Out There?, as well.

"It's neat to see them interact," McEntire's tour manager Graeme Lagden tells PEOPLE in 1994, four years before the pair steps out at the One True Thing premiere in L.A. "They're great business partners and obviously very much in love. They absolutely wear well together."

Another year, another red carpet for the couple, this one at a Macy's event in Santa Monica, California, in 2001, with son Shelby, then 11. Blackstock also has three children from a previous marriage: daughters Shawna and Chassidy, and son Brandon (now also a manager and married to Kelly Clarkson).

Blackstock proudly stands by his wife's side at her 2006 CMT Giants honors in Hollywood. "Narvel and I have the same dream," she tells PEOPLE. "He's the thinker-upper and I'm the doer."

"I miss him when we're apart," McEntire tells PEOPLE of Blackstock, with her here at the 2009 ACM Awards in Vegas. "[We] never leave each other without a kiss and 'I love you.' "

Blackstock hangs with his other VIP client, Blake Shelton (plus McEntire and Shelton's ex-wife Miranda Lambert) at the 2011 Country Music Hall of Fame Medallion Ceremony in Nashville, where McEntire was honored.

Months before her wedding to Blackstock's son, Kelly Clarkson happily hangs with her in-laws-to-be at the 2013 ACM Awards. "I have the coolest mother-in-law," Clarkson tells PEOPLE two years later. McEntire echoes the sentiment: "Kelly and I have been buddies since 2002, and she's a great, great person, and I just love her to pieces."

One of the couple's final public appearances comes in April 2015 at the ACM Awards. In August, they announce their separation after 26 years of marriage. "Despite this being the end of their marriage, they continue to support each other," a rep says in a statement. "They have worked together for 35 years and will continue to do so. They have asked that you respect their privacy during this time."