Disclaimer: I'm a fangirl, just trying to spread the Gio love and make my Getty Girls smile. I'm in no way affiliated with Ugly Betty or ABC and no copyright infringement is intended.

Rating: K

Summary: A response to va4lovers' Getty challenge to write a marriage announcement for Gio and Betty, similar to those found in the NYT's weekly Vows column.

Author's Note: I'm no journalist and have never written in this format. To add insult, my NYT password is incorrect, so I couldn't read recent columns online. I just hope I'm vaguely on-target and that you enjoy my little fluff piece. :)

With a perfectly straight, white smile that can only be described as luminous, bubbly 27 year old Betty Suarez swears "I can't believe I'm actually talking to you!"

She's surprised because when they first met, Betty believed her new bride-groom, 29 year old Giovanni Rossi, to be "rude, cocky, and a little arrogant." "He had a great smile," she remembers, "but he just got under my skin!" Their tale began with a chance meeting when Betty, then working for fashion magnate Daniel Meade, ordered a sandwich from Gio, then selling his now world-famous sandwiches from a simple aluminum cart inside the offices of MODE Magazine, of Meade Publications.

As she describes their first meeting, he looks at her and laughs, recalling "I liked her immediately simply because she ordered a true sandwich and not a bed of lettuce, easy on the lettuce. That she was short, cute, and feisty enough to really fight me on the number of tomatoes she wanted was a great bonus."

The couple got off to a great friendship, but a rocky romantic start, as Betty was already headed toward an undue proposal from another man. "I was in a relationship at the time," Betty remembers. "We were headed toward a breakup and my boyfriend Henry thought if he proposed, it might save us. It couldn't." At this, the new Mrs. Suarez-Rossi looks to her husband with an embarrassed but flirtatious grin.

The two began dating very soon after this first proposal when Gio whisked Betty away to Italy for his brother's wedding. "I'd be lying if I said it was spontaneous," confesses Gio. "I'd been thinking about asking her for weeks, but when she officially broke it off with Henry, the timing finally seemed right."

Gio claims he'd wondered for months, but knew he was in love with Betty as they held each other close on the dance floor at Benito Rossi's reception. "Ben pulled me aside later that night to chide me a little," Gio remembers with a gleam in his eye. "He figured it out exactly when I did."

It took Betty only two weeks longer to recognize the intensity of her feelings for Gio. When she felt him gingerly remove and fold her glasses as she fell asleep on their flight back to New York, Betty says she knew Gio was the one. "There was something in his touch," she remembers wistfully. "His rough fingertips softly grazed my face when he took my glasses off and I'd never felt so safe or warm in my life. I know it seems weird," she says awkwardly as she adjusts her posture, "but that was when I knew."

Their courtship progressed for a full eighteen months as Betty began her new career as a freelance writer and editorial assistant and as Gio's Deli expanded to the New York staple we've come to know and love. Their lives were a whirlwind of excitement and energy when Gio surprised Betty with a second and more welcome proposal.

"I was really having trouble on an article I was writing and Gio came in with a midnight plate of tamales one night," Betty beams. "I was really frustrated and didn't want to be interrupted, but when he walked up behind me and said he had a favor to ask, I thought I might be in for a nice distraction."

"I put my hands on her shoulders and asked if she'd be interested in marrying me," Gio says in a simple, no-nonsense tone. "I wanted to get her to smile," he laughs. "I planned to make a joke, to flirt with her. I had no intention of proposing, but seeing her there, I just couldn't let the opportunity pass."

Betty says that she always imagined a romantic, cinematic proposal, but that Gio's was more perfect than anything she could have dreamed. "I was in such a bad mood and was so taken off-guard, but it was perfect. He's still so cocky, but I love his spontaneity."

The couple was surprised when Betty's father, Ignacio, presented Gio with Betty's late mother's rings, now gleaming from Betty's left hand. "I asked Ignacio weeks earlier for permission to ask his daughter's hand," Gio remembers with a hint of a blush. "He silently folded the velvet box into my hand, kissed my cheek, and said 'felicitaciones, mijo.'"

The two exchanged their rings and self-written vows on Saturday evening at Saint Theresa's Roman Catholic Church in Woodside, where Gio's family has attended services since his childhood. The small parish was flooded with friends and family members who welcomed the newly married couple with open arms and a shower of rose petals—red, Betty's sure to note with a giggle. Their color was chosen by Gio, symbolizing the tomatoes that sparked their initial meeting and his promise to always provide her with as many as she may desire.