Spanish
New York.- Elena Rossel Aparicio and Thomas Lucas Wolter, nurses from the Los Angeles area who got married during the halftime show of Super Bowl LX, in front of 70,000 spectators and with Bad Bunny as a witness, recounted in an interview how their love story took one of the most extraordinary turns of their lives.
Elena and Thomas sent a wedding invitation last October to Bad Bunny's record label in Puerto Rico, without imagining that they would end up getting married in the middle of the popular sporting event, with millions of people watching the ceremony, reports the New York Times this Tuesday.
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The couple, who met in 2018 at a hospital in California where they worked, thought that, at most, they would receive a signed card from Bad Bunny, Wolter's favorite singer, they told the media in their first interview after the show. But his life took a major turn when, on January 15, Aparicio received a call from the office of the Puerto Rican's label, which he didn't pay attention to because he thought it was 'spam'. Then a text message arrived and a phone conversation with the couple, in which they were asked for their shoe and clothing sizes. "We thought: 'Oh my God, he's going to give us a t-shirt or something like that!'", said Wolter, recalling that moment, without imagining what the artist would propose to them. They were also asked if they had any travel restrictions, and they thought they might be invited to a concert. Two days later, during a video call with the artist's team, the news arrived that would change everything: Bad Bunny wanted them to get married during his halftime performance at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California, a proposal they accepted immediately. "They said: 'Benito wants to capture real people, real emotions, real love'", recalled Aparicio about the proposal of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, known as Bad Bunny, who signed the marriage certificate as a witness. Aparicio also didn't know that Lady Gaga, his favorite singer, would be part of the show. The couple, who after meeting in the hospital spent four years without seeing each other again until Aparicio sent him a message in 2022, began dating frequently in 2023 and, in October 2024, when they had both finished their nursing degrees, Wolter proposed to her. During the preparations and two weeks of rehearsals, they kept their wedding at the Super Bowl a secret. Aparicio and Wolter's family and friends knew they would participate in the event, but were unaware of the details; the couple joked that they would be dancers, they told the Times. When the big day arrived, the bride, who had tried on six dresses by designer Hayley Paige, chose a corset-style one with a small train and, on the gigantic stage of the stadium, they said yes in the ceremony celebrated by Reverend Antonio Reyes, of Project Church South Sacramento. "Just looking at him took away all my nerves," said the 29-year-old Salvadoran Aparicio, about Wolter, 32, and assured that it made her forget the presence of 70,000 people, while her now husband affirmed that he was focused on her. The ceremony was followed by Lady Gaga's performance. "While one is alive, one must love as much as possible," Bad Bunny was heard saying, who had previously met with the couple for a few minutes, to whom they gave Pokémon cards and they dedicated a card to him in Spanish. Wolter assured the newspaper that many "great" things happened that day, but "what excites me the most is that I now have a wife. A companion for life and a best friend for life."
