Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico revealed on Instagram that they recently had a secret wedding.
Mariana Varela, 26, of Argentina, and Fabiola Valentín, 22, of Puerto Rico, met while competing at the 2020 Miss Grand International Competition, where they both finished in the top ten. They had also previously represented their respective countries in the Miss Universe competition in 2019.
The models had previously posted pictures together of their friendship but never implied they were dating.
However, the same-sex couple recently shared in a joint Instagram post that they had a secret wedding ceremony in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on October 28.
“After deciding to keep our relationship private, we opened the doors to them on a special day,” Valentín wrote.
The post shows a 30-second reel of the couple traveling across Latin America to various locations before showing a proposal in an apartment with balloons spelling out “Marry Me?” The video has received over 4.2 million views and 290,000 likes as of Thursday.
The reel ends with the women wearing their engagement rings along and them standing outside a marriage bureau in San Juan. Same-sex marriage was legalized in Argentina in 2010 and in Puerto Rico in 2015 as a result of Obergefell v. Hodges.
Those who commented under their joint post were mostly congratulatory toward the couple. Varela thanked those who gave the two well wishes and said they were “very happy and blessed.”
Elsewhere on social media, the secret wedding received mixed reactions, with some sharing their approval, others disapproving, and some highlighting the attractiveness of the two beauty queens.
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.