Back in 1992, Janet Fenner and Gregory Dabice were chosen Homecoming queen and king at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
On Aug. 1, they returned to the site of their former glory to get hitched on the 50-yard line of Sprague Field.
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This “royal marriage” was something neither Fenner nor Dabice ever imagined when they were students.
“We never dated in college,” Fenner told the university. “We knew each other from Greek life, but I was a straight-A student, intra-sorority vice president, on the student government and track team, the whole nine yards.”
Dabice was the other extreme ― a total party animal.
“I wasn’t right for her in any way,” he told NorthJersey.com. “She was too good for me and I knew it.”
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After college, Fenner and Dabice went their separate ways, each marrying and starting families with other partners.
Both also got divorced in 2016.
The two reconnected in March 2019, when Dabice was looking for love on Bumble and saw Fenner’s photo.
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“I couldn’t believe she was single, I couldn’t believe she looked the same, I couldn’t believe she was out there on this app,” he told Inside Edition.
So he did some double-checking, according to Fenner.
“He actually reached out to one of his fraternity friends and said, ‘Is this Janet Jaramillo from college?’ Just to verify it was me,” she told Inside Edition.
Dabice said the friend had this advice.
“He told me, ‘That’s Janet, all right. Go and get your queen.’”
Getting together may have taken nearly three decades, but once they were dating, Dabice knew it was serious by the third date.
However, the proposal wasn’t traditional, since it came in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dabice had family members drive by with signs outside his home with Fenner that spelled out, “Will you marry me?”
“He definitely struck a chord in my heart and here we are,” Fenner told the university. “We have seven kids, two dogs and a sulcata tortoise, and it still works just perfectly. I wouldn’t change a single detail.”
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The wedding itself took place on the 50-yard line in Montclair State University’s football stadium ― the same spot where they became Homecoming royalty 28 years earlier.
The wedding was officiated by Chief of University Police Paul Cell. The couple was surrounded by all seven kids, who observed COVID-19 safety measures including wearing masks and social distancing.
But for Fenner and Dabice, the marriage is more important than the wedding.
“I got my king,” she told Inside Edition, to which Dabice added with a kiss, “I got my queen.”
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