Evelyn Rodriguez and Feliberto Gonzalo, both 27, were high school sweethearts who started dating their senior year at Union City High School in New Jersey, and in 2010 went to their prom together.
Mr. Gonzalo, who wore a tuxedo to the prom, gave her a wrist corsage spray painted with gold glitter to match her white gown with gold flowers, and picked her up in his father’s yellow Hummer.
“It was probably the only yellow Hummer in New Jersey,” Ms. Rodriguez said with a laugh. “My mother would make fun of it and say it was a school bus picking me up.”
Ms. Rodriguez, now an associate at Werner Suarez, a law firm in Hackensack, N.J., was the first in her family to go to college. She graduated cum laude from Rutgers, and received a law degree from Seton Hall.
“She’s beautiful, and a great person who makes me better,” said Mr. Gonzalo, a New Jersey State trooper based in Hope Station, N.J. He graduated from New Jersey City University.
Ms. Rodriguez was born in Cuba, and came to the United States when she was 7; Mr. Gonzalo’s father is Cuban, and his mother is Ecuadorean.
“My whole family loves him,” said Ms. Rodriguez, “and his whole family loves me.”
They were just 17, when Mr. Gonzalo picked her up for their first date on Dec. 30, 2009.
“He was so funny,” she said. “He was super skinny. Skinnier than me. He has hazel eyes and curly hair. He was always picking on me and making jokes.”
During college they saw each other on weekends, usually at family gatherings.
“I feel like there was an event every week,” she said, and during the week and Saturdays, he worked at his family’s truck repair business.
“He works hard and plays hard,’’ she said. “He likes to be around family all the time.”
Mr. Gonzalo said she was nervous about going to law school. But he recalled telling her, “‘It’s not going to be easy, but you got to do it.’ She pushed me through college. I gave her support through law school. She passed the bar in one shot.”
He proposed in May 2018 at her law school graduation party, in front of 80 guests, after she was sworn into the New Jersey bar.
“My boss swore me in at the party,’” she said. “My parents were holding the Bible,’’ and then she recalled Mr. Gonzalo grabbed her hand, and said, “‘I’m very proud of you. You’re going to be an awesome attorney, but I know you’re going to be an even better wife,’” and then he got down on one knee.
By the end of the year they moved into their house in Little Falls, N.J., with their two Maltipoo dogs, Mason and Ava.
“He’s definitely not skinnier than me anymore,’’ she said, and now he drives his own little red Corvette. (His father still has the Hummer). “He works hard for the future, spending as much time with me as he can so that we have everything we envisioned growing up. We’re living the American dream.”
They originally planned to marry on May 24 at the Ss. Joseph and Michael Church in Union City, with 150 guests, and now plan to renew their vows there next April. They decided to get legally married June 27 in their backyard in Little Falls. The groom’s sister Jessica Kovach, affiliated with the American Marriage Ministries, officiated at a small ceremony with their immediate family.
