“Call me old fashioned, but I just always dreamed about our engagement being announced in the newspaper since we grew up in the Keys for our entire lives,” Samantha Dellilo wrote to The Weekly earlier this week. “Also, because I do still read the newspaper weekly. Some things are classic!”
Dellilo, 30, recently became engaged to her boyfriend, Marky Berta, also 30. Dellilo was born and raised in Key Largo, and Berta moved here when he was very young. The pair have known each other for 21 years and met Sept. 1, 1999.
“We were 9 years old, in the 4th grade,” Dellilo said. “Mark transferred from PKS to KLS and when he walked in … I was floored. I told my friend next to me, ‘He’s a hunk’ and my target was set ever since!”
The pair officially started dating Nov. 18, 2006 and will have been together 14 years this November.
“Marky has absolutely been my best friend throughout my childhood, and he continues to be my best friend throughout this relationship,” Dellilo said.
Berta proposed while the pair were camping for a week in Fort Wilderness in Disney.
“I’m Disney obsessed,” Dellilo admitted.
Now, with the pandemic, they are trying to decide between a fun, family-filled wedding here in the Keys or a “planned elopement,” as Dellilo calls it.
They share a rescue dog named Ziggy that they are “head over heels, over the moon in love” with, said Dellilo. She also called Ziggy “truly the center of our world.” The pair rescued Ziggy in very poor health at a few months old, and he’s had them “wrapped around his paw ever since.”
Talking again about Berta, Dellilo said, “I know it all sounds cheesy, but I have the most fun with him. Food doesn’t taste as good if he’s not there to try it with me. A joke isn’t as funny if he’s not by my side laughing.”
