We Got Married!

Thanks to Traci DeSalvo (Martinez), one of the bridesmaids, she introduced Marina & Junior their junior year of college at Fort Hays State University in 2013. Junior had an interest in Marina but at that time, she was taken. Junior likes to claim that he actually first met Marina one morning when she was walking to class. He used to park near her house (which he didn't know was her house at the time) and would walk to class and one morning he caught up to her and started a conversation. Otherwise, Marina remembers meeting Junior at a house party that Traci took her to. Funny enough, it was at Junior’s house where he was roommates with Luis Vides and Christian Fuentes, both who are groomsmen. After college, they parted ways to pursue their careers. Junior moved to multiple states and Marina moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. About 4 years later, Junior landed in Lubbock, Texas and just happened to find Marina on Facebook. On August 3rd, 2018, they reconnected online and had a long distance relationship for a year before Junior moved to Albuquerque.

Told by Marina: For my birthday, Junior wanted to take me out of town and do something romantic. We chose to go to the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort & Casino which was in between both Albuquerque, NM and Lubbock, TX. The second night we were there, we dressed up and had dinner at their nice restaurant. As we were leaving, I mentioned that I wanted a picture of us in front of their large fountain in the lobby so Junior kindly asks the restaurant host if she'd take a picture of us and proceeds to whisper something to her. Junior walked back towards me and we began to pose for the camera. I wasn't thinking anything different as we had posed for photos a million times before. But, that's when he surprised me, that when it happened! Junior got down on his knee and presented the most gorgeous ring that i have ever seen. I begin to bawl like a baby. Junior then put the ring on my finger and I was speechless! I'm pretty sure Junior didn't even officially ask me to marry him! But, I obviously didn't say no!

COVID made many things uncertain but one thing it did not do was ruin our perfect wedding. After a lot of back and forth with our wedding venue, Junior and I decided to quickly renovate our backyard and host our wedding in our beautiful home. It turned out better than we could have imagined. We minimized our wedding from 150 guests to our closest 30. It was small, intimate, beautiful and perfect.