Chinyere Gonzalez wasn’t expecting much from her first date with Leron Edward Rogers. The two had crossed paths twice before their May 2008 meet-up at Lime, a now-closed tequila bar in Atlanta, and neither of those encounters had inspired butterflies.
Mr. Rogers, 53, was with his children the first time they met at the 5th birthday party of a mutual friend’s daughter in fall 2007, and in what he called “dad mode.” When they met a second time, months later, to talk through some legal questions she had, he was in business mode.
By the time the first date, which ended at Blind Willie’s Blues Club, rolled around, he had found a third mode: dancing machine. “It was a Friday night and I was relaxing, and she saw my moves,” he said. “I had some really good dance moves.” They were complemented by a healthy sense of humor.
“He made me laugh,” said Ms. Gonzalez, 52. “I don’t remember what we talked about that night because it was so long ago. But it felt like we were the only people there.”
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Ms. Gonzalez is the owner of two Atlanta businesses, Drew Allen Real Estate and First Impressions Cleaning Solutions, a commercial janitorial service. Mr. Rogers is an attorney who specializes in entertainment and business litigation. Both are divorced.
Neither had romance on their minds when their mutual friend introduced them. Instead, “it was one of those things where you’re standing around watching your kid do what they do, counting down to when the party’s over because there’s probably another activity right after,” Ms. Gonzalez said. Mr. Rogers remembered saying, “Hi, which one is your kid?” and not much else.
It was a hectic time for both. All four of their children — Ms. Gonzalez has two daughters and Mr. Rogers has a son and a daughter — were still in elementary school, and they both had demanding work schedules. When Ms. Gonzalez reached out to Mr. Rogers for legal advice in May 2008, it was because she wasn’t sure how to close a complicated real estate deal. After the matter was resolved, she said she took him for tequila to thank him. He had saved her what could have been steep legal costs, including his own.
“I couldn’t afford Mr. Leron Rogers’s retainer fee,” she said.
Ms. Gonzalez and her younger brother spent their early childhood in her father’s native Kingston, Jamaica. When she was 8, their parents, Christopher Gonzalez and Victoria Durant-Gonzalez, moved the family to Atlanta. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in communications at American University, she worked at several public relations firms. In the early 2000s, she earned a master’s degree in communications from Georgia State University, along with her real estate license.
Mr. Rogers, a partner at the law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, wanted to be a sports agent before he settled on a career in law. He played baseball as a teenager in Milwaukee, where his parents, George and Jacqueline Rogers, raised him and his younger brother. The Atlanta Braves drafted him as a second baseman, he said, but instead of signing with them he accepted a scholarship to Oklahoma State University.
He later transferred to Texas State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in finance. After graduating Florida State University College of Law, he worked as an associate at a large Atlanta law firm and, on the weekends, worked a second job “flying around the country recruiting kids as a sports agent,” he said.
By the mid-2000s, he was a father and less interested in travel, so he committed to entertainment law. He has since represented clients like Rick Ross and the rap group Migos. He has two children, Sydney, 23, and Austin, 26.
Both remember that their first date was on a Friday because each had handed off their children to their exes for the weekend. By the time of their next parental handoffs two weeks later, they were an item. “I was smitten,” Mr. Rogers said. “I remember her walking in that first night looking hella cute in a sundress and the jean jacket she always wears and jazzy flip-flops.”
Their first trip together, two months later, wasn’t for fun. Ms. Gonzalez’s father, who had moved back to Jamaica, was very sick. (Her mother died in 2004.) She didn’t want to travel alone, so she asked Mr. Rogers to come with her. “It was comforting to have him there,” she said.
When her father died of blood cancer that July, Mr. Rogers again flew to Jamaica to support her. By then, Ms. Gonzalez knew she was falling in love. She was hesitant to be the one to say it first, but when he picked her up at the airport after a hurricane had marooned her in Jamaica for a few extra days, “it just came out.” He said he loved her, too.
Mr. Rogers was living in Decatur, Ga., and Ms. Gonzalez was in her childhood home in Atlanta when they agreed they were ready to take their relationship to the next level in 2011. They moved in together, but didn’t consider marriage. “We were both happy,” Mr. Rogers said. “I think we both felt like, OK, we’re good. Let’s stay happy.”
After he moved into her place, where they still live, they did just that. A decade passed before Ms. Gonzalez’s daughters, Victoria and Hannah, sat her down for a talk.
In the spring of 2021, Victoria, 24, was away at college — she is now a law student at U.C.L.A. — and Hannah, 22, was graduating from high school and headed to Howard University. “They said, ‘Mommy, you and Leron love each other so much,’” she said. “‘It’s time. You all need to get married.’”
But Ms. Gonzalez said she needed time to process their request.
Mr. Rogers said he was already getting “the full court press,” he said, from friends on both sides about why he hadn’t proposed. But Victoria and Hannah knew he wasn’t avoiding marriage.
“I had told them, ‘I want you girls to know I would marry your mom any day, anytime, anyplace,’” he said.
But Ms. Gonzalez’s contentment with the status quo suited him, too. “We were fully committed to a life together and in love,” Ms. Gonzalez added. “We felt great and did not need the piece of paper.”
By 2023, conversations about marriage had become more frequent. “We became open to the idea,” Ms. Gonzalez recalled. By the end of the year, Mr. Rogers began designing an engagement ring.
There is no good answer, both said, for why they finally got engaged on Feb. 9, 2024. “We’re just slow,” Mr. Rogers said, jokingly. Earlier that night, they had attended a concert by the R&B singer October London, a client of Mr. Rogers. Six friends joined them at the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta for a drink afterward.
“All the fellas knew it was going to happen,” Mr. Rogers said. “But none of the ladies did.” When he told Ms. Gonzalez he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, the room erupted. Victoria and Hannah, away at college, had gotten a heads-up via text from Mr. Rogers that night.
“My mom hadn’t been waiting on it,” Hannah said. “But I think she was very excited to make it official. It had been forever, basically.”
On Feb. 14, they returned to Jamaica for a happy occasion: a ceremonial Valentine’s Day wedding at the Half Moon resort in Montego Bay. Ms. Gonzalez’s brother, Odiaka Gonzalez, led the ceremony before 75 guests. Ms. Gonzalez, who was escorted down a grassy aisle by her daughters, wore a fire engine red ruffled dress that she found on sale at Saks Fifth Avenue. Mr. Rogers’s tan linen suit was made by Dedrick Thomas, a friend and designer who owns Hideoki Bespoke, a custom clothing line.
In handwritten vows, Ms. Gonzalez told Mr. Rogers he makes her feel safe, seen and cherished. Mr. Rogers told Ms. Gonzalez she brings him peace every day. They were wed legally a week later, on Feb. 21, by Nekeya Canady, a minister with the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta.
In the end, both said making their love legal after almost 17 years hasn’t changed the relationship much. But they’re grateful Hannah and Victoria nudged them, and for the celebration in Jamaica that came with it. “We were present for every moment, with each other and with the people we love,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “When I tell you I have never felt so joyful and happy, I mean it.”
On This Day
When Feb. 14, 2025
Where The Half Moon Resort, Montego Bay, Jamaica
A Gentle Nudge Victoria, like her sister, had no problem with their mother’s relationship status when they sat her down for what they now call “the talk.” But “it had started to feel silly calling Leron my mom’s boyfriend,” she said. “We felt like, there’s more here than that. We wanted to remind her that this is something worth celebrating.”
Full Circle At the Montego Bay wedding, guests were seated in what the couple called a “circle of love.” Chairs were arranged in spiral format with the altar in the center. At a beach party following the ceremony, the menu included traditional Jamaican dishes such as Escovitched red snapper, “peppa” shrimp and jerk chicken.
Helping Hands Ms. Gonzalez is known among family and friends as Julie the Cruise Director, a nod to the ’70s TV chestnut “The Love Boat,” because she is always planning things. “Just like any other key event in my life, I planned our wedding,” she said. But she acknowledged she had help this time. Her daughters, her friend Ingrid Emmons and her sister-in-law Viet Ly, all pitched in.
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