Heath Fuentes sits at the kitchen table with books open. Erin Fuentes sits in the living room; a typical college student's living room with mismatched furniture that they have some how managed to coordinate. These two, however, are anything but typical. At an age when most college students are dating casually, these two have abandoned the dating scene and made a forever commitment to each other.
Neither of them knew it would end up happily ever after when they first met at a Halloween party two years ago. Heath Fuentes, feeling a little bored and mischievous at the party, gave Erin Fuentes a black pepper jellybean just to see her reaction.
"He told me it was blueberry," Erin Fuentes said, laughing as she remembered that night. As Erin Fuentes rushed to the sink to rid her mouth of the black pepper bean and Heath Fuentes laughed at the trick he had pulled, no one knew that this would be the beginning of something great.
Five months after the jellybean incident, the two started dating. They had both agreed that they wanted to take their new relationship slow at first.
"I had been in relationships before where they go completely physical, and that's not what we were all about," Erin Fuentes said.
When school broke for the summer, the couple went their separate ways, but not even a three-hour drive or summer vacation could keep them apart.
"The long distance factor over the summer really pushed us," Heath Fuentes said. "It made us want to see each other even more because we couldn't."
Once school resumed in August, the two decided they did not want to wait anymore and were engaged by mid-September.
"I was ready to get married; I knew I was," Heath Fuentes said. "'I'm 23 going on 24' I told myself. I'm not getting any younger here. So I told her the ball was in her court whenever she was ready."
Erin Fuentes, 21 at the time, looked at marriage a little differently at first.
"I always said I would be graduated and out of college before I ever thought of marriage," Erin Fuentes said, "but we both just got to the point where we didn't want to date anyone else."
"And then one day," Heath Fuentes said, "as I was leaving my military science class, she called me on my cell phone and said 'Do you want to get married in February or in the summer?' and I was like 'Praise God!' I had been praying all day, asking for God to just show her the light."
The two opted for the winter wedding and were married on Jan. 3, 2004.
Marriage takes compromise and hard work and these two have already faced some tough decisions as a married couple. Because Erin Fuentes owes Ball State money for past semesters, and they are a young couple with little money, they were forced to decide which one of them would be able to return to school this spring. Erin Fuentes, who is still undecided on a major, said she is okay with sitting out for a semester. So every morning she wakes up and makes her husband breakfast and drives him to class before she heads off to work.
Through all of this, these newlyweds said they have no regrets. They feel like they did not rush into things and would not change a single thing about their relationship.
"Everything just clicked," Heath Fuentes said. "We were both mature enough and, even though I hate the term, we were compatible. We each have the same goals and as Christians we know what God desires of us."
"It's serving each other," Erin Fuentes said. "Putting the other person first."
"People say that relationships are 50-50," Heath Fuentes said, "but I think they are 100-100."
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