The first time Carla Ann Jablonski encountered Arthur Miranda Lazalde II, he was blocking her view during rehearsals at the Metropolitan Opera in 2015.
“I could not see the conductor for the life of me because of this tall guy,” Jablonski said. “I thought he was cute, but my first impression was, why did they put this tall dude in my way?”
Lazalde, who is 6 feet 3 inches, and Jablonski, who is 5 feet 9, were both in the cast of the Met’s production of Verdi’s “Otello” — Jablonski as a chorister and Lazalde as an actor playing one of Otello’s soldiers. Despite the fact that they were regular performers at the Met, they didn’t properly meet until nearly five years later.
Jablonski, 39, grew up in Butler and Chambersburg, Pa., and decided to pursue a career in the arts as a teenager. At 15, she moved to New York with her mother, Martha Vanslette, and her stepparent, Shelly Vanslette, to attend LaGuardia High School. After graduation, she studied voice, earning a bachelor’s degree in music at Manhattan School of Music and a master’s of music at Juilliard. She joined the Met as a chorister in 2014.
Lazalde, 44, was born and raised in Salt Lake City and received a bachelor’s degree in theater and psychology from Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. In 2004, he moved to New York to study acting at N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts, and received a Master’s of Fine Arts in 2007. He works as an actor and a building manager, and joined the Met as an actor in 2013.
In early March 2020, Jablonski and Lazalde matched on Tinder. Feeling cautious because Lazalde was a co-worker, Jablonski asked a fellow chorister for her thoughts.
“She spoke so highly of him,” Jablonski said.
Buoyed by the endorsement, Jablonski agreed to meet Lazalde for karaoke at Cornerstone Tavern in Midtown Manhattan on March 10. She had just wrapped a performance in Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman”) at the Met and arrived at the bar at 11:30 p.m. They greeted each other with a hug.
“He said, ‘We haven’t met, but it’s good to see you again,’” Jablonski said. “I thought that was peculiar, and then it sank in, and I thought, ‘Oh, I like that.’”
Lazalde described the meeting as an “intense moment of nostalgic familiarity” of a sort he has experienced a handful of times in his life.
After Jablonski told Lazalde that the hardest song for her to attempt at karaoke would be Beyoncé’s “Love on Top,” he challenged her to try. She accepted.
“I could hit the high notes, but I really flubbed the song,” Jablonski said.
Lazalde said that as Jablonski sang, he saw different aspects of her personality, which he later discovered were alter egos for which Jablonski has nicknames.
“She has the Carla, the caring heart; the executive high-functioning, CJ; and she has her clown, fun side, Jablonkadonk,” Lazalde said. “What I thought was extraordinary was that I saw her go from CJ to Carla to Jablonkadonk in four modulations. I didn’t realize that until I was looking in hindsight. That was so attractive to me. ”
Later that evening, they kissed.
The next day, Jablonski went to see Lazalde perform in Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” at the Met. The day after, they both received emails from the Met saying that the opera was canceling performances through the end of March because of the coronavirus. Not sure if they could end up trapped in New York City, Jablonski and Lazalde decamped to Searsport on the coast of Maine, where Jablonski’s friend had an empty cabin.
“On March 18, we packed up my car and drove,” Jablonski said. “We intended to be there for a few days to feel it out. We ended up being there two months or so.”
While they were unpacking, Jablonski pulled out a bag of multicolored clown wigs.
“That was a green flag for me,” Lazalde said. “I couldn’t have lasted that entire lockdown, quarantining, if we didn’t have a sense of play and zest and joy for life.”
In the early days of their stay, the cabin had a ladybug infestation. Hundreds of the red-and-black creatures were on the windows. One night, while Jablonski was asleep next to him, Lazalde looked up what the ladybugs symbolized.
“I found this post that a ladybug can help you find your true soul mate,” Lazalde said. “As I read that, one landed on my left hand, and I said, ‘Find my true love.’ It flew away, and I looked over and thought this is so surreal. Is this my soul mate?”
Jablonski and Lazalde spent their time in the cabin listening to music and going on walks. They also wrote and shot a film called “Ladybug.” Jablonski, an ardent cook, made meals that fused cuisines from both of their heritages: She is Polish American, and he is Mexican American.
After they returned to New York in mid-May, Jablonski decided to go to the Hamptons with a family for whom she worked as a nanny and personal assistant to supplement her income as a performer. On the evening she left, Lazalde told Jablonski that he loved her, and she replied that she loved him, too.
After making it through a summer of dating long-distance, Lazalde and Jablonski decided to go on a cross-country trip in the fall to meet each other’s friends and family. They visited Pennsylvania, Texas, California and Utah. About a year later, when the Met reopened in September 2021, they returned to work, and Jablonski moved into Lazalde’s apartment in Manhattan.
In October 2021, to celebrate Lazalde’s 40th birthday, Jablonski organized a surprise two-hour “Cabaret Roast and Toast” featuring performances by the couple’s friends, who include actors, singers, musicians and a magician/mentalist among them.
“At the end of the night, he got up and thanked everyone,” Jablonski said. “He asked me to come up onstage, got on one knee and asked me to marry him.”
After Jablonski agreed, she said, “The room blew up with cheers.”
Lazalde’s proposal was spontaneous — he didn’t even have a ring and had to use the one he was wearing.
“I was shocked and astonished by the whole evening,” Lazalde said. “By the end, I thought anybody who loves me this much to do this for me, I would be stupid not to get on one knee for.”
In the spring of 2022, after completing a run in the opera “Turandot,” Jablonski and Lazalde moved to Skagway, Alaska, for several months to star in a musical called “The Days of ’98 Show” at a local theater. They performed three shows a day for tourists coming off cruises.
“We lived in a tiny house similar to the tiny house we quarantined in,” Jablonski said. “We felt very fortunate to be nestled up in an awesome little house, to be performers together.”
In September, after they returned to New York, Jablonski proposed to Lazalde at her own birthday dinner at Lido Harlem Restaurant.
After a long engagement — in part to save money and in part because finding a suitable date was difficult with their performance calendars — Jablonski and Lazalde were married on June 13 at the Victorian Gardens of Two Sisters in Kingsburg, Calif. The wedding, attended by 80 guests, was officiated by their friend Wade Watson, who was ordained for the occasion through American Marriage Ministries.
The welcome party held the day before was a “Cabaret Roast and Toast,” a nod to Lazalde’s 40th birthday. For the event, Lazalde and Jablonski set up a stage at the home of Watson and his wife, Laura Watson, in Visalia, Calif., arranged sound design, designed posters and programs, and even handed out tickets. Wedding guests were part of the show, performing Shakespearean monologues and Irish limericks.
Jablonski surprised Lazalde with a rendition of “Make Our Garden Grow” from Leonard Bernstein’s opera-slash-musical “Candide.” She’d been inspired after Lazalde played the song in the car on June 9, when they drove to pick up their marriage license. The next day, during the wedding ceremony, Lazalde surprised Jablonski by referencing the song in his vows.
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For the welcome party finale, Jablonski and Lazalde walked along the side of the pool in matching robes while a friend sang and played guitar. When the song reached a crescendo, they tore off the robes, revealing ladybug swimsuits, and leaped into the pool.
On This Day
When June 13, 2026
Where The Victorian Gardens of Two Sisters, Kingsburg, Calif.
Pre-Ceremony When guests arrived at the ceremony, they were instructed to gather colorful petals and sprinkle them along an existing circle of white petals. During the ceremony, Lazalde and Jablonski stood inside this circle. “Them adding color is how they added color to our lives,” Jablonski said. “It was very meaningful.”
Inner Child Wanting to encourage a sense of play at the wedding, Jablonski and Lazalde asked guests to send them photos of themselves as children. When guests arrived for dinner, they found vintage frames with their photos inside, with their table numbers on the back.
Tying the Knot After saying their vows, Lazalde and Jablonski performed a handfasting ceremony. The ancient ritual involves tying hands together to symbolize union. Lazalde and Jablonski asked their sisters to do the honors using three ribbons that Jablonski’s mother had embroidered.
