HOW DO YOU MEET THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE?
The first to know that Alejandra and Juan Manuel would be a good couple was his brother. On a walk where she was also there, he told her more than once that she would be perfect for his brother. She, curious, laughed at the comment. "She would be perfect for my brother, right?”. "Yes," those who knew them both would reply.
They couldn't confirm this chemistry on the first date. He, quiet, and she, outgoing, seemed a case of opposites not attracting. They went to lunch with two other people. "He was super serious," she recalls. "Yeah, a lot of times I pass for serious," he replies. "I don't like to give you anything to talk about and on the first date we were both tired, we saw each other after work. But I remember that she, who is the complete opposite of me -friendly, outgoing, extroverted-, took, several times, French fries from my plate without asking."
Then came an exchange of messages via Instagram and a second date: "I got in the car, we started talking and, from that moment on, it was like being with my best friend."
Juan Manuel's calmness, you could say, made Aleja fall in love. His voice is a murmur in the face of Aleja's swell of speech. "At first, when we started dating, people would ask me: Aleja, are you happy? And I would answer: I'm calm. And for me that, above all, is happiness. Of course, there are the passing, spontaneous moments, but there are also the moments of tranquility, of trust".
It was a love that was built between days and family moments. As they got to know each other, they discovered that they shared similar values and priorities. They both come from homes where they recognize respect and love as pillars. If asked about a role model, exemplary relationship, the answer they give is the same: their parents. Strong, decades-long marriages, where family is at the center.
Juan Manuel says that when they had been together for more than a year, as time went by, Alejandra was becoming the woman his father told him about one day when he was younger: "We were going up to the house where we lived in El Retiro and my father gave me one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received. He told me that when I was going to get married, that when I was going to be with a woman, I should look for someone who could be my best friend, my girlfriend, my lover and my wife. In Alejandra I found all of that. She is the best girlfriend I have ever had, she is my best friend, there is no doubt that she is the best lover and she is the best wife I could have ever dreamed of".
ASKING FOR THE HAND OF A FRIEND, GIRLFRIEND, LOVER AND WIFE
The ring had been in storage for five months. "Aleja," says Juan Manuel, "is not a fortune teller, but she is a very good detective. An oversight would ruin the surprise. And that - that single desire to create an unexpected, perfect, unforgettable moment - made him leave the ring in the jeweler's custody. All in all, the hardest part was already done: he had found the person he wanted to spend his life with. The rest - the day, the details, the words - time would tell. Juan Manuel is a quiet man. He knows how to wait.
In this unthinkable time, which cuts off words and makes them insufficient, planning a marriage could have more arguments against than in favor, but in adversity, treasures are hidden.
The first, for example, is the weather and its signs: "With the pandemic, seeing that at any moment we might not all be there, knowing that the family of each one is the most important thing for both of us and that I wanted our parents to accompany us when we got married, I started to plan the moment to ask her to be my wife".
The place chosen was El Peñol. They had spent important moments of their relationship there, one of their first dates, for example, and it was a place where they both went to escape from the city and their jobs. She is a model. He, founder, owner and manager of Senso Pack, a plastics manufacturing company. Their jobs are as different as they are demanding: they talk little during the day and at the end of the day -together again- they tell each other the details of the routine. They have the peace of mind of not needing to know where each other is all the time. In the evenings, Aleja says, there is always something new to talk about or discover about the other person.
So when Juan Manuel proposed to her that they go to El Peñol in the middle of the week to relax and forget about the routine, the idea was not far-fetched or strange. There was no reason to think that it would be a short trip different from the ones they had taken before.
SHE, FIRST, SAID NO.
The day before, Aleja -by any chance? -She had told him that if one day they were going to live together she would like to have a set of dishes made in El Carmen de Víboral, so -perhaps betrayed by nerves and emotion-, to Juan Manuel's question she first answered no, that what she had told him the day before was annoying. He told her that he knew she would always bother him, but that the decision - to ask him to marry her - was not one he would have taken lightly. The ring had been ready for several months and he, with every moment they spent together, confirmed that it was with her that he wanted to be forever.
For years he had had several certainties. The first one was that he would marry without anxiety. The second was Aleja. "Since the first and second year, I knew that I could have a marriage with her, I was getting to know her and seeing that we shared the same values, the same priorities".
The dawn of the next day seemed to celebrate the promise of their union. Juan Manuel remembers that sky as the most beautiful they have seen together in El Peñol. Perhaps, as beautiful as she is. She remembers the moment with one of those confirmations that life gives: everything you dream of can come true.
"EACH DRESS, A LITTLE BIT OF WHO I AM"
Aleja is used to wedding dresses. She is a model and these, in a certain way, are part of her routine. She has known designers Andrés Pajón and Felipe Cartagena for 14 years. She has been the image of their collections. "It's not just a working relationship, they are my friends." So when she started planning her wedding, she had no doubt about who would make the dress. The appointment with them was one of the first when she started planning her marriage.
Whenever she modeled one of their creations, the same question was always in the air: When will we make yours? And now that it was time, the designers spared no creativity: instead of one dress, they proposed three. One for the religious ceremony -the one she had always dreamed of-; another for the couple's first dance and the first moments of the party; and one more for the last hours of dancing and celebration.
For the dresses Aleja wore, she had to wear earrings with a lot of personality.
That's why she went to Maria Fernanda Zawadzky, who knew her since she was a little girl because she had modeled several times for her brand, and asked her to make long earrings, with lots of shine and movement.
Maria F, created some beauties, hand embroidered, stone by stone and loaded with crystals that would make Aleja shine even more, and baptized them ALEJANDRA.
The first dress was a dream. Brilliant, fantastic: "I always longed to get married in a dress like Cinderella's," says Aleja. A harmony of fabric that started that day in which, for a few hours, there was no pandemic. No one expected her to have a wide silhouette like that, since the wedding dresses she had modeled throughout her career have almost always been mermaid cut, a little sexier and tighter.
"At first I was a little bit hesitant about whether I should have three dresses. Because of the moment we were in, because of this crazy world, but it was something that came naturally and I think, and this is my advice to brides, that if opportunities arise to have what you want on your day, you have to take advantage of them. I love fashion, it's my profession, and I enjoyed, loved, that opportunity to have more than one dress."
The royal imposingness of the first dress contrasts with the cool sobriety of the second. Andres and Felipe dressed Aleja in a fitted silhouette that seems embroidered in stars so that she, universally, would open the rumba on her wedding day. "It was a light change, a calm dress, in which I felt super comfortable and that also showed something more of who I am."