Amy Milagro Badia and Daniel Naranjo share a “memory box” from their 12-year relationship.
In it is a plane ticket from his first trip to Moca, Dominican Republic, where her family is from; an Eiffel Tower key chain from their vacation to Paris; the cork from the champagne bottle they popped the night of their proposal; and love letters they wrote each other in high school.
Ms. Badia took out mementos from the box a few days before her wedding, getting emotional as she reminisced.
“One of the first things Daniel ever taught me was how to draw a rose,” Ms. Badia said of their high school years. “And on all of our love letters, there’s little roses that we’ve drawn each other.”
“You could just see the love from the beginning,” she added. “We’ve talked about this day for so long, and now, it’s here.”
Technically, Ms. Badia and Ms. Naranjo, both 29, met in prekindergarten in Englewood, N.J., where they’re both from, but she doesn’t remember him. He does, though: “She was part of the cool kids in the pre-K class,” he said. (During their adult years, they discovered photos together from prekindergarten, including a photo of them posing at his birthday party.)
After prekindergarten, Mr. Naranjo and his family lived in West Palm Beach, Fla., for a few years before returning to Englewood, where the two attended the same middle school and high school. In middle school, he said, he sent her some messages on Myspace, but she never responded to them. (Again, she doesn’t recall this.)
One weekend in May 2012, during her junior year and his senior year, a friend hosted two parties when his parents were out of town. At the first party, Mr. Naranjo was too shy and nervous to even look at Ms. Badia, she recalled: “I was like, ‘Is this guy gonna talk?’”
“I was so shy that first day because I was like, ‘Yo, I don’t want to mess it up,’” Mr. Naranjo said.
At the second party the following night, Mr. Naranjo loosened up, and they started chatting. “We just hit it off like if we were together forever,” she said. He walked her home, and they messaged each other the whole night.
That summer, they spent many nights climbing ladders on buildings for scenic rooftop views. “Our dates were super simple because we were in high school, so we didn’t really have money to do stuff,” Ms. Badia said. One of those nights, when they saw a shooting star, they made wishes.
When she asked him what his wish was, he said, “That you’re my girlfriend.” Ms. Badia responded: “I’m already your girlfriend.”
“It was so high school, just like so cheesy,” she said, but endearing.
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In the fall of 2012, Mr. Naranjo went to Bergen Community College to study fine arts, eventually dropping out to pursue a career as a tattoo artist. Ms. Badia graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree in public health.
In September 2019, they moved into an apartment in Englewood. “We were having a ton of fun,” Ms. Badia said. “We finally had money.” And in November 2022, Mr. Naranjo proposed in Chiang Mai, Thailand, during a dinner at a waterside gazebo.
In December 2023, the couple moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., so that Ms. Badia could pursue a career in aviation. She currently works as an administrative coordinator at Merriman Market Analyst. Mr. Naranjo is a tattoo artist at Monarch Studio in Phoenix, and he is an owner of Ink Wave Studio, a tattoo shop in Hackensack, N.J.
On April 16, the couple were married at Bel Vino Winery in Temecula, Calif., in front of 35 guests. The ceremony was officiated by Hector Duron, a minister from an officiant service in La Verne, Calif., called Joining Hearts.
On the morning of the wedding, they had breakfast together before splitting up to get ready. They met at the venue for their first look, and they read their vows to each other privately.
After the ceremony and dinner, the night ended with music and dancing. The D.J. played traditional Latin American genres like bachata, merengue and salsa, as well as hip-hop, R&B, reggaeton and dembow.
Looking back at it, Ms. Badia said that the first night they spoke at their friend’s party in high school was when she knew he was the one.
“We were walking home and there were some sprinklers because it was nighttime, and Daniel playfully picked me up and ran through the sprinklers,” Ms. Badia said. “When he touched me, I had this sensation inside and I was like, ‘Whoa, what happened?’ That feeling is the same feeling that I get now to this day when he hugs me.”
Sadiba Hasan reports on love and culture for the Styles section of The Times.
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