Lucie Lott said knew she would marry Eladio Fabregas even before the two had spoken.
Their paths first crossed in September 2021 outside the cafeteria at Samford University in Homewood, Ala. Ms. Lott, now 22, was starting as a freshman, and Mr. Fabregas, 25, who goes by Lalo, was a junior.
“We did a triple take,” Ms. Lott recalled. “I remember telling my roommate right after that I had met my future husband.”
Mr. Fabregas, a native of Galicia, Spain, came to the United States on a tennis scholarship. During that brief encounter, Ms. Lott noticed he was wearing a shirt for Samford’s tennis team. She found his photo and name on the team’s roster and sent him a message on Instagram that same day.
“I asked if it was him who I had seen earlier,” she said.
“I replied, ‘Yes, I think you are the beautiful girl I noticed,” he said. “I hate texting and messaging and asked if I could call her.”
That first call led to a first date, during which ice cream and stargazing on a hilltop followed dinner at a local pizzeria.
The night almost didn’t happen. Mr. Fabregas said that he had toyed with the idea of canceling for fear of falling in love. “I was so taken with Lucie and knew that if we went out, we would get serious,” he said. “I was young, in the country on a scholarship and here to make it. Part of me thought that a relationship might be distracting.”
