Joe Hubbard met Julie Llamas at church when they were just teenagers and then got reacquainted in their 30s. She asked him to her company Christmas party back in 1977 and they dated once or twice a month until their mothers passed away in the ‘90s and that’s when their romance really started heating up.
But after 40 years together, Joe, 75, and Julie, 79, had never gotten married. The Illinois couple were busy with work and caring for family members and while they were close and in love, they were happy with things the way they were. And then halfway through mass on May 15th, Joe turned to Julie and out of the blue asked, “You want to get married?” and she says she laughed and said, “Yeah.”
The longtime couple decided to make it official after all these years, planning a small ceremony, but their friends, family and church community had other ideas. Joe and Julie just said “I do” in front of 200 loved ones who’ve waited a long time for to see this happy ending.
So what made the lifelong bachelor change his mind and pop the question during church that day? “I’m getting old,” Joe says. “And when you start getting old, you realize you’re going to die, and you want to enjoy a little bit of what God gives us to enjoy.”
Source: Belleville News-Democrat