I Do!: Lucy DiBenedetto and John Restrepo

When you know, you know, said Lucy DiBenedetto. And she knew when they met that John Restrepo was a match for her.

A friend introduced the Queens natives in the spring of their senior year at Francis Lewis High School. “We started BBMing [texting] and the rest is history,” DiBenedetto, 32, said.

At graduation in 2010, Restrepo introduced DiBenedetto to his mother, Maureen Restrepo, on what was one of their earliest dates. “When I walked away, she tells my mom, ‘I’m going to marry your son,’ ” Restrepo, 31, said. “My mom loves that story.”

Restrepo, who works for the New York City Department of Sanitation, proposed under spectacular Northern Light skies while they were on a tour in Iceland in September 2019. He remembered worrying about losing the ring in the darkness.

“You can’t see anything, and I was trying to hold his hand but he was nervous and he said, ‘Stop trying to hold my hand.’ I couldn’t figure out what was going on,” DiBenedetto recalled. “You could see the stars, and then the whole sky lights up with green, and he proposes. And then there was even more green! It was beautiful.”

The tour, which included several of their friends, continued on to an ice cave where there was also a chapel, and they re-enacted the proposal. “She said yes, thank God,” Restrepo said.

The couple got engaged just before the start of DiBenedetto’s busy period at work as an auditor of public companies. By March 2020, when she could think about other things, “the world shut down,” she said, and their wedding was delayed because of the pandemic.

They finally married on Sept. 10, 2023, at The Park Savoy Estate in Florham Park, New Jersey, DiBenedetto said. Their honeymoon to Hawaii had to be rearranged, since they had been booked to spend seven days on Maui but the island had experienced devastating fires.. “I didn’t feel right about staying there,” she said.

The couple, of Bellmore, also learned on their honeymoon that they are expecting a baby. She is due in May when, said Restrepo, “I get to meet the second love of my life.”