Several years, working in a local automotive assembly plant in Hermosillo MX, my coworkers and I would go to the local establishments for dinner and drinks after work. This is how Ines (Mercedes) and I met at the establishment she was working at in Hermosillo.

At first, with the language barrier, Ines would stop at the hotel I stayed at an hour before her shift, and we would sit outside and talk through our phones about our day. She would tell me about her kids, and I would tell her about my family and friends back home. All very awkward through our phones but we managed to make it work.

I admired the way she made her children the priority in her life. We both are family oriented, and I really enjoy having the kids around us when I visit. She lives with her sisters, brother, mother and children in a single-family home. Because of my work keeping me travelling, I live with my parents and am very close to them.

Ines and I would see each other about every 2 months. When I was there for work, we would spend the evenings together with or without the kids. I would extend my trip to be able to spend extra time with them before returning home. When I worked out of Mexico City, I would fly to Hermosillo to see Ines at the end of my work trips.

Around February 2022, I asked Ines’s mother Monica if I could marry Ines. Monica laughed and told me she was crazy, and she would love to have me as her son-in-law. Once that was done, I went home to my parents and let them know of my intentions to marry Ines. My parents are totally supportive of my relationship and the trials that will come with it.

In April 2022, we visited a jeweler friend of my father and purchased Ines’s engagement ring from them. I chose a pink morganite ring in white and rose gold. My mother was with me when picking out the ring. Morganite is thought to be a mineral of love. Perfect for us, nontraditional but a true symbol of love.

I travelled with my parents to Hermosillo in June 2022. We spent two days in Hermosillo, 7 days in San Carlos and on to Mexico City for 4 days to celebrate my birthday. Little did Ines know that we were coming to an engagement party. I led her to believe my parents were travelling with me to just meet her and her family, nothing more.

We got engaged on Father’s Day, 2022. Ines’s family travelled to San Carlos under the pretenses of celebrating Father’s Day. We went to the local park to take family photos and during the photo taking, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. Wow! The longest hesitation ever during a proposal! She was stunned that this was my intention, and she said yes!

Once we were engaged, we spent the next two years working through the immigration K1 visa process and seeing each other about once every two months. The application was approved and on April 9, 2024, Ines and her children had the interview process finalized on her 30th birthday.

My mother and I travelled to Hermosillo at the end of April and moved Ines and the three children to Michigan.

We got married right away when Ines and the kids got to the US. Now that we’re settled in, we will have a ceremony and party in my parents’ backyard. The very same way my parents got married 37 years ago. They were married by the local justice of the peace and had a big party at this very same home several months later.