Childhood sweethearts said real vows, and the audience exploded

Oscar Diaz and Janelly Mendoza were legally married on stage on June 11, after a performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Public Theater's Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Their officiant was Francis Jue, who plays Friar Lawrence in the production. The couple, who have known each other since childhood, traveled from Laredo, Texas, where they met associate artistic director Saheem Ali. Ali set his Romeo and Juliet at the U.S.-Mexican border, and the pair told him about a local ritual where a Mexican citizen and a U.S. citizen marry on a bridge, each standing in their own country. He proposed a real wedding to mirror the play's. "Just regular people like us don't do that stuff," Mendoza said. They brushed it off, until Ali messaged again. A real wedding or vow renewal follows every performance this summer, 32 in all. Diaz and Mendoza knelt to say their vows, and the audience exploded. "It's real now," Mendoza said.