What Happens in Vegas? Angelina and Peter Tell Us!

9:12PM Jun 3, 2022

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angelina

vegas

wedding

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boyfriend

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love

marriage

math

family

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graduate

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read

summer

called

publishing

An elopement to Vegas a secret marriage? Yes, please. Today we have got a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Try not to swoon right off the edge. I'm Sarah Wendell. I'm Alisha Rai. Welcome to lovestruck daily where we bring you a love story every single day.

To you I'm in love with you.

It is day two of our sizzling summer week. I think we need to talk about beach reading. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because it is the season for all of the books that are part of the beach reading to come out.

Mm hmm. I actually read. So I did an event with Christina Lauren, which I know you did as well in DC. I did I did. I did the equivalent in LA both on duelling on duelling. Tuesdays, I noticed you were back Yes. I started a new finished. I did. Yeah. So it was it was great. And I also read their new book which just came out called something Wilder, which I think is going to be a fantastic beach read for everyone this summer. It's like a Yeah, I mean, I'm a I'm a personal fan of the caper since I'm releasing one in October and it was gonna say it's a treasure hunt. And it's in you know, in the in the desert and it's fantastic. It was so fun and quick to read and enjoyable. So I'm, I'm excited for people to take that on their vacations with them this summer.

That's a really good recommendation. Because I mean, it's a it's a quest. It's a it's a treasure hunt. Yeah, and there's

like a good element of suspense in there. There's a there's only one sleeping bag, which is you know, kind of nice as you do this as you have and so it's just fun. I think that's my criteria for a beach read. It's gotta be fun.

Absolutely. I have an a recommendation that comes out in June and then I have another recommendation that comes in August. Okay, you know, take notes. Yeah, at the end of June on the 28th the dead romantics by Ashley pastan comes out and this is very inside baseball. If you are a writer are familiar with publishing this will be your jam. A ghost writer is haunted by her dead editor's unfinished business. So we have hot ghost. I love it. That's so fun. And there is so much inside snark about the publishing world and ghost writing and publishing and how it works and it is it is one of those books where even if you're not familiar with publishing, you get such a competence born insider look at it. I love competence porn. That's fantastic. I love it. And my end of August recommendation, write it down preorder do all the things that you do ask your library to order that's always fine because if I asked my library to order a book, then I'm first in line on the waitlist when it comes in Sango Madonna has a book called The very secret society of irregular witches, which is what it is on the tin. It's a secret society, regular witches.

How are you giving us some paraNormals? Here I like that. Yes,

it's about found family and new love and there's a romance in it. And I love it so beautiful. So those are my wrecks for you. I love that I'm

hungry for the paraNormals to return that's not really I think traditionally considered a summer genre but I think it should be one and fun fun paraNormals come back.

Yeah, but I mean honestly read whatever you want. It's your vacation, read whatever makes you happy. Whatever makes

you happy. I have very specific

requirements for a good beach read are a good summary. Like I need to be able to dip in and out of it. I need to not be like emotionally crying all over my towel. I like fun and light and some elements of family and friendship and that kind of thing. I like to feel good when I'm reading it.

Yeah, understandable. Well, today we have a very exciting guest Angelina Lopez who is a romance author, yay with a sizzling love story of her own her past novels include serving sin, hate, crush love money, and she's got a brand new novel coming out this summer you won't want to miss on her website. Angelina says that she writes sexy Latin X inspired stories about strong women and the worthy men lucky enough to love them. Hell yeah.

Please welcome Angelina Lopez Angelina, it's so nice to see you again. It's been a while

of so while yes, you totally should. Like it's been ridiculous amount of time to see people and I know writers.

It does feel like forever. And this is your husband, Peter.

This is my husband, Peter. Very. Hi, Peter. Hello, everyone.

So you wrote in with your love story, which we're so excited to talk about. So why don't you tell us in your own words what your story is.

We met in I was still in college. He was graduated already. We were both journalists in our small college town like I was still in school. I was working part time for the local paper. And he was working full time. And I'm on the phone with a girlfriend of mine who'd had the job before I did. And she was like, have you seen Peter linquist yet? And I was like, I'm not kidding. The second, she says that this long haired blonde boy walks into the newsroom. And we instantly make eyes and we were in those really obnoxious 20 year ages where you're just so intensely full of yourself, you know, just surging on like lack of information and confidence. And so he looked at me, I looked at him, we both have these incredibly cocky smiles on our face. He's talking to his editor the whole time. And I'm like, I think I just saw Peter and, you know, I hang up and he comes over and very confidently introduces himself and so we were friends in the newsroom. I said, very like, look, something's happening here. But I have a boyfriend. And he's like, and kisses me anyway. And it was really awesome.

I did want to throw in one detail about what she described there at the end, that we we kissed anyway, and that is that we were at a bar called the bourgeois pig, which is a great name for bar

fantastic Barton. Barney, and

she told me, this is this is it, we're, we're going to stop this. We're not going to let this proceed. I have a boyfriend. So I said, Okay, that's fine. And and then I said, Do you want to go out to the lake? And she's like, okay, so we got in my car drove out to this lake. And there was a dam. It was dark and kind of windy. So the setting was very dramatic. And that's, that's when we kissed. I do

love Peter, that you set the scene, lest anyone think that you're just some sort of Neanderthal?

Oh, you have a boyfriend? I don't care. Like you were like, no, no. How long?

So after that, you know, you you kissed and I assume you broke up with your boyfriend pretty quickly.

Yes, pretty quickly. And then. And then

you dated for a while? How long did you guys eat for?

Well, we were sort of, on and off because she went to Spain for a semester and study there. And so we we had sort of agreed at that point that, that we were broken up

rather than dealing with this issue as much better just to go to and all the boyfriends and all that chaos I created. It's just easier to get to Spain. Great. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. We're gonna date

ourselves a little bit. But the way we would communicate it was when BBs is first came out. So it was before email really became a thing. And the only way she could get those messages, though, was to go to a particular library on campus. It was like a three mile walk in Spain. And so it we might as well have been just writing letters.

Oh, and then it was calling among calling cards, like standing in a phone booth for 40 minutes. Yes. In that regard to

Oh, so you couldn't quite run away as much as you want

to entirely. Yeah, I got back kind of chaos managed. We dated. I was very dedicated, like going to school or graduating and starting my life. My parents had married very young, it was something that I knew, like I knew, married very young, it wasn't the best choice. So although I was deeply into him, I was very committed to like, I'm now I'm gonna graduate. I'm gonna go. And we were both in journalism. And then I had a professor who essentially told me, if you break up with him just to break up, you're gonna regret it for the rest of your life. And at first, I was very offended. Like, you're not my Mom, don't tell me what yeah. And then I like he came home from work that day we were living with at this point, and I'm just sobbing on the floor. Like, you know, I was like, yes, you can come where I go. I don't know where I'm going. Exactly. But if, you know, I can't follow you. Because that would just lead to I would just be a mess. And at that point, like we committed like that was like, if we can figure it out. That was commitment, long term. But we both we both end up going to the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa. I got a job there first. He had a job competing job offers between Des Moines and Dallas decided to follow me to Des Moines and we'd live there a year. It was into mind we discovered that we were pregnant.

And now we're going to take a quick break but don't go anywhere. The story will continue

so my mom went through a few marriages with her if you marriages. And so for me the idea of marriage was not all that important commitment was I believed in two people deciding to be together for the rest of their lives. But I did not prioritise a wedding as part of it in any way, shape or form. And in fact, one of the first like overbear debates we had is whether marriage is necessary anymore. And why is it we debated back and forth and that he finally came down to that it was important because of gifts, get gifts, and

that's important for the family. And then for us to get gifts

his fair enough. That was his joking response was the wedding because true thing was that you legitimise it in front of all the people you care about, and you get this community of people to say, we're going to help you in this endeavour, you being a partnership, we're going to help you in that endeavour. Oh, I love that. And when we decided that we were going to become a family and have a child and I want to 100% say, one of the options would have been us deciding not to have the baby. We weren't ready. We weren't. We've been together for years at that point. But yeah, there was no kind of moral questioning about that.

Could Thank you for saying that. It's important to normalise that as being part of the decision that you made a situation. So thank you for saying that. Yeah, especially

today. So decided Goddamnit let's have a baby. We're gonna have a family. Yeah, it looked like I was going to stay home. I could freelance from home, I was working as a newspaper reporter, but I could feel it from home. What am I going to do for benefits? What's that gonna look? Yeah, okay. Well, would then we would need the marriage certificate and the wedding for that to happen. And why don't we just do just as a piece or something. So on my birthday,

for her birthday, I presented her with, instead of a ring, I presented her with tickets to Vegas, so that we could get married in Vegas, since we were going to go to a Justice of the Peace anyway, just just the two of us plus our son. We're going to fly to Vegas and get married. And she accepted and everyone in the restaurant clapped and then asked to see the ring. And it was embarrassing because there was no ring it was

I wasn't embarrassed. Like I was like We don't ring I don't want to ring. I don't need a ring like yeah, we're gonna go

to Vegas like,

Yeah, we're gonna go to Vegas. But at that point, we decided we weren't going to tell anyone that we were going to Vegas to get married. This was another

debate. So we wanted to eventually to then have a wedding with the family involved. So we could have that family recognition and, and for them to to enjoy the wedding. If they knew we were already married. They wouldn't. It wouldn't be as meaningful to them. Yeah, of course. We were already married. So and we might not get as many gifts.

That is the key I was about to say it might affect your gift receiving. Exactly, yeah, there

also would have been like they might have like resisted us doing that. They might have been like, hey, you know, don't get married in Vegas. We want to be involved. Yeah, my my mom and my grandmother figured out my mom was like, What are you going to do for benefits if you're not going back to work? And I was like, Oh, we're actually gonna and I was like, Don't tell anybody. We're not telling anybody. And she like went along with that for son. Oh, that's

so nice. Yeah. And so you got married at the little chapel of the flowers which I've driven past so I know which is a fantastic chapel. I must say

their alumni are Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra. Okay. All right. A couple of other celebrity. Okay.

I think I think maybe Michael Jordan at one point also got a you are in very one of his multiple marriages, I think was in that one. I think another one too.

We were there first.

Right? Yes. Good job. Good job. Yeah. So really, he's following your trailblazing.

That's exactly what it is. And so we gather up a child we get back in the car, both of us are realising this is much more seismic than we even realise. So we didn't tell our family for two years that we'd done this.

Wow, that's a long time to keep this secret. Yeah, every

time we went and visited her dad, he would ask me when I was going to make an honest woman out of his daughter, and I already had and so it was like, a double deception.

Yeah. And so every time this happened, we knew that we had, like, messed up real, real bad. So two years later, my uncle had done taxes for us and told her uncle was like, Well, how do you guys file and I said, Marry jointly, and he was like, I know. He was like, you have to tell your dad I can't know. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, it was bad. Yeah. So I called there were tears and anger. And my dad said, You guys are getting married and it's gonna be in a church. Yeah. And we still haven't done anything. You saw

so you never had a big wedding like you never have like the gifts and everything. We never

got gifts or Our friends in DC were always like, So you bought all this stuff your

house, you want to buy the salt shaker yourself,

blender and toaster?

Do you think you'll ever do like a renewal of vows or anything like that with your families? Or is the ship sale for you?

He asked my mom and my stepdad if they would be good with us during renewal of the Vows and everyone cried is if he just asked for my hand when we

oh,

probably because they missed out on that part. So for them, maybe it was like, like, he really did just ask for your hand, you know?

Oh, yeah, it was lovely. And yet, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change a thing that was on. And we'll watch the video now. It's this grainy like security camera with its video. Like way in the corner. Amazing. watched it with our son. And we were standing just watching it just thought thinking it was a lark. And when it was over, we all love each other and all of us had tears laughing hysterically. Yeah,

I mean, even if it was like nothing kind of like a small ceremony, then it still means something to you. It means something to your kids. So that's wonderful way. What have you learned about love after being together for all those years? Like what's what's your piece of advice to give to younger couples?

Don't do the math. Yeah, that's good. So it helped us in just a little things like day to day stuff, if you're sort of adding up, who's doing what and, and, you know, we found ways of, of sort of mutually contributing over time. But, but not ever really trying to add all that up. Because there's there's just so many different ways that each each partner in a relationship contributes, and it's easy to get caught up into some of those day to day details that that do accrue, and one person if they're doing the math might might think

that 100% agree, yes, with artists trusting that the other person is trying to do all they can in any given situation. There have been a lot of conversations and fights and whatever about like, I need you to step up there and sing back. So but I think the initial part of that is trusting the other person is doing all they can and then within that trust, it's don't do the math, it's got to be handled other ways than doing this constant scale. That scale is just the number one way to unhappiness but in terms of advice, like have a good time together. Having a good time is so fundamental to to our relationship and relationship being successful. And if you're looking for somebody just make sure you haven't been you have fun with them.

Yeah, absolutely. 100% agree with you. I think that's I think that's fabulous advice. Both both pieces of advice are fabulous. So Angelina, you have a new book coming out this summer. And you sexy book. What's What's the title of it?

It is called after hours on Mulago Street.

Awesome. And where can people find you on the internet? If they're looking for you?

Best place is my website. Angelina M lopez.com. I'm an Instagram. I'm on Tik Tok at author Angelina M Lopez.

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you both so much for coming on. We really appreciate it. And this has been so wonderful. And we love your little love story. It's so so great. And thank you for writing in us about it. Oh, yeah.

Thank you. And Alicia, good luck on your future endeavours. We highly recommend Vegas as a start to a long and happy marriage.

That was so cute. They're really beautiful. How what is your love to go for this episode?

Have a good time together. Don't do the math.

It's always a good idea to not do math, especially in this case.

keeping score does not end in anything good unless you're actually playing a game in which you keep score. Agreed

agree. Oh, we would have loved to hear about all the ways that you do or don't keep math. So please send an email to lovestruck daily at frolic dot media and follow us on Instagram and Twitter especially Instagram. We have a lot of behind the scenes scoops there. And please please please if you can, and if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review. It is the easiest and best way to support our show.

Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler, little Scorpion studios with executive producer frolic media. This is an iHeartRadio podcast.

We wish you a very non mathy happy ever after. I'm in love with you say to you I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you