It was through hats and a cousin that Mariela Osorio and David Gochicoa met at a pop-up. Two months later, they had their first date.
On the afternoon before her wedding day, Mariela Alexandra Osorio’s apartment was buzzing, round millinery boxes all over her living room, while family and friends tried on the custom hats she’d spent weeks working on for them to wear to the event.
It was among hats that Ms. Osorio, 31, and David Gochicoa, 35, met for the first time in April 2021. Ms. Osorio had invited Mr. Gochicoa’s cousin, a friend of hers, to her pop-up shop in Monterrey, Mexico. “We thought we were going there for half an hour,” said Mr. Gochicoa, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in general management from the EBS Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, and is the owner of Americas Machinery, a company specializing in industrial relocation and crane sales and rental.
Mr. Gochicoa had absolutely no interest in fashion. Or hats. “And you never thought you would fall in love,” Ms. Osorio added.
After talking for more than half an hour, Mr. Gochicoa asked Ms. Osorio on a date. It would be two months later, but they did end up having dinner at Café Belmonte Bar, a cozy restaurant in the old quarter of Monterrey, just a day before Ms. Osorio had to fly to New York for a summer internship with Fred Castleberry, a fashion designer.
“My mind was already in New York,” Ms. Osorio said. As a result, “I wasn’t trying hard for him to like me.” But they closed down the restaurant, “and after that night we never looked back,” Mr. Gochicoa said.
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