Our story begins in June of 1999. We were introduced while I was working at a clothing store in the South Shore Mall. After seeing Manny a couple of times at night clubs, we exchanged beeper numbers (I am totally showing my age). We became friends and every time we would see each other in the club we would dance salsa and afterwards meet at the diner. The last time I hung out with Manny was at my house party in August 2001. I have a picture of us together from that night.

Our love story began in January of 2005. While out with my BFF Maria Rivera, I spotted Manny. Take a wild guess where? If you thought the club.. you nailed it (where else would we run into each other?) At the end of the night I gave him my cell number. A couple of days later while in upstate New York, celebrating my best friend’s daughter’s first birthday (1/19), I received a voicemail from Manny. The message said “Hi Isabel, it’s Manny. I wanted to know how you are doing. Give me a call when you get a chance. My number is 516-698-29##.” That’s not a typo, I couldn't make out the last two digits of his phone number. I remember telling Maria Cabrera that I needed to some how figure out what those last numbers where!!!! After several unsuccessful attempts I had to call in “the professional” ...my BFF Desiree. I called her and gave her my voicemail passcode and asked if she could help with my dilemma. Desiree’s our go to girl for investigative work and on this day she did not disappoint. Within no time she was able to work her magic in figuring out the missing numbers (Thanks Des). On Valentine’s Day I received a call from Manny asking if he could come over. My awesome mom had cooked me a Valentine’s Day dinner and I said sure, come over. He arrived with a bouquet of flowers. You might be thinking “Aww, how sweet”, meanwhile I thought some other chick totally stood him up LOL. Manny swears he bought them for me (the jury is still out on that one) 😉. Our first outing was in March 2005 to see the movie "Hitch" at the Commack Movie Theater (classy). I must have known we would be together forever, because I still have the movie stub

Life took us in different directions and in July of 2013 I moved to Virginia. We eventually broke up and I was devastated. Moving to Virginia had been a goal of mine for years. Manny and I kept in touch, but the relationship had ended. On May 28, 2016, I was in New York for Memorial Day. I came prepared with two dresses to celebrate mine and my BFF Maria Rivera’s 35th birthday. I wanted to party like it was 1999 but no one had any plans to go out. After contacting several people, I reached out to Manny and asked if he had any plans for the night -after all I had a dress that couldn’t go to waste ;). He stated he was available and I made it perfectly clear that we would be hanging out “as friends”. We ended up at a club in NYC with Oscar and Maria Rivera. It was that night that we truly understood our love was everlasting. In that moment I knew he was my forever. Here we are in 2019 getting ready to make our commitment to each other before God and our loved ones. Thank you for being a witness to our happily ever after.