Outside the Campus Cafeteria, It Was Love at First Sight

Lucie Lott said knew she would marry Eladio Fabregas even before the two had spoken.

Their paths first crossed in September 2021 outside the cafeteria at Samford University in Homewood, Ala. Ms. Lott, now 22, was starting as a freshman, and Mr. Fabregas, 25, who goes by Lalo, was a junior.

“We did a triple take,” Ms. Lott recalled. “I remember telling my roommate right after that I had met my future husband.”

Mr. Fabregas, a native of Galicia, Spain, came to the United States on a tennis scholarship. During that brief encounter, Ms. Lott noticed he was wearing a shirt for Samford’s tennis team. She found his photo and name on the team’s roster and sent him a message on Instagram that same day.

“I asked if it was him who I had seen earlier,” she said.

“I replied, ‘Yes, I think you are the beautiful girl I noticed,” he said. “I hate texting and messaging and asked if I could call her.”

That first call led to a first date, during which ice cream and stargazing on a hilltop followed dinner at a local pizzeria.

The night almost didn’t happen. Mr. Fabregas said that he had toyed with the idea of canceling for fear of falling in love. “I was so taken with Lucie and knew that if we went out, we would get serious,” he said. “I was young, in the country on a scholarship and here to make it. Part of me thought that a relationship might be distracting.”

Despite his hesitation, Mr. Fabregas stuck to the plan, which had Ms. Lott picking him up in her car from Samford’s tennis center after practice.

“I gave him a hug when he came out and told him that I was excited to see him,” Ms. Lott said. “From then on, we talked nonstop and shared our goals and different upbringings.”

Ms. Lott grew up on a 250-acre horse farm, Augustus Hill, in Paris, Ky. The property hosts events and has been used for fashion shoots for brands like Peter Millar. She graduated from Samford with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and mass communications and now runs Augustus Hill’s events business remotely.

Mr. Fabregas has a bachelor’s degree in business and an M.B.A. from Samford. He is a financial analyst at the private equity firm Regent in Beverly Hills, Calif., where the couple currently resides.

After that night, the pair was inseparable. “We studied, ate, exercised and enjoyed every bit of free time together,” Mr. Fabregas said.

Early on in their relationship, he accompanied Ms. Lott to her family’s vacation home in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., introducing him to her mother, Diane Lott.

“My mom made sangria and served Spanish olives to bring a little of Lalo’s background to the evening,” Ms. Lott said.

In the fall of 2022, Mr. Fabregas asked Ms. Lott to accompany him on a trip to Galicia to meet his family.

“I was overwhelmed and nervous,” she said. “They didn’t really speak English, and I don’t speak Spanish, and I wasn’t sure how all the translation would work out. But his parents greeted me with hugs and were genuine and warm.”

Mr. Fabregas’s and Ms. Lott’s courtship continued over the next few years. When Mr. Fabregas finished the M.B.A. program and got hired for the financial analyst job in California, Ms. Lott relocated with him and switched to Samford’s online program until she graduated.

Before moving, the couple made their annual trip to visit Mr. Fabregas’s parents in Spain.

“Lalo told me that he wanted to add on a weekend getaway to an island called La Toja for some sun and relaxation,” Ms. Lott said. “I knew that he was going to propose at some point, and when he mentioned the trip, I was sure that it would happen then.”

However, rain interfered with Mr. Fabregas’s plans. “I was going to ask Lucie in front of a church that’s made out of seashells,” he said. “But when the drops started coming, I postponed.”

The following morning, on June 1, 2023, Mr. Fabregas and Ms. Lott returned to the church and he presented her with a center-cut diamond ring embellished with two shield-cut diamonds.

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

On June 15, the couple wed at Augustus Hill before 160 guests, including Ms. Lott’s grandfather, Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, as well as several members of Mr. Fabregas’s family from Spain.

Hunter Bates, a close friend of Ms. Lott’s family and a former chief of staff to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, officiated. He was ordained by Christian Global Outreach Ministries.

Ms. Lott, wearing a lace Monique Lhuillier dress, arrived at the altar with her father, Chet Lott, in an open-air, wicker horse carriage as a harpist played Pachelbel’s Canon.

Mr. Fabregas was dressed in a European morning suit from Stuart Mercer Gentleman’s Shoppe in Lexington, Ky.

At the reception, an alfresco sit-down dinner included Kentucky beef and Spanish paella. A dance party followed with an Ibiza nightclub theme.

“The day was a joining of two distinct cultures,” Mr. Fabregas said. “And a reflection of our relationship.”