Influencer Marissa Dawn LaRochelle marries Julio Lopez on "GMA3"

Julio Lopez surprised YouTuber and social media fitness influencer Marissa LaRochelle with a proposal live on "GMA3" — and, days later late, a wedding before 1.6 million.

Not all brides want a marriage proposal made to them on national television. Fewer still might want the wedding to be held for a live audience four days later.

But Marissa Dawn LaRochelle, who married Julio Cesar Lopez on the show ABC News' "GMA3: What You Need to Know" fronting 1.6 million viewers on February 24, had the experience of going public with her private life before walking down a staged aisle, cameras rolling, in the studio of Network's Times Square television.

Ms. LaRochelle, 33, is a fitness content creator known as Marissa Dawn, posting as @70LbsofLife on YouTube and Instagram. In 2016, she began documenting her quest to lose weight and regain her health after an early diagnosis of diabetes. By the time the producers of "GMA3" offered to talk about her journey on TV in January, she had lost 140 pounds (almost half her weight) and had become a certified personal trainer and mental coach.< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Lopez, 40, knew nothing of the transformation that would one day take them down an all-expenses-paid aisle when they met.

Ms. LaRochelle and Mr. Lopez are both from San Antonio, Texas. Ms LaRochelle moved from Colorado as a baby with her parents, Lori and Pete LaRochelle, and her brother. Mr. Lopez, owner of JC & Son Plumbing in San Antonio, was born in Nueva Rosita, a town in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, and grew up in Texas with his parents, Julio C . and Florinda Lopez, and five siblings.

Tinder reunited the couple in September 2020. Ms. LaRochelle was steadily gathering followers for what was shaping up to be an approach sustainable for better health and had recently convinced herself to start dating. Mr Lopez, who divorced in 2015 and has two children, aged 13 and 9, was unaware of her social media presence but was drawn to her picture.

When they met for a first date at Hoppy Monk, a bar in San Antonio, relief overwhelmed them both. "She looked like she did in her profile, which was amazing because you never know what you're going to get" thanks to dating apps, he said.

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She was relieved that he no longer had that long beard he wore on some of his Tinder photos. "He was very handsome," she said.

That night they talked about loose skin. “I wanted to get it out right away,” said Ms. LaRochelle, who had lost enough weight that her skin was loosening (she has since had the excess skin removed). "At that time, I was looking for a serious relationship and I had met a few people who weren't attracted to it." It was a conversation Mr Lopez might have ignored: "I thought, 'Who cares? ", He said. "We had a connection. That's what mattered to me."

A month later, Halloween day , he asked her to be his girlfriend. Two months later, they quarantined together when they both had