Actors Marisa Abela and Jamie Bogyo first met when they were in the same year at the prestigious London drama school RADA in 2016. “We were best friends throughout the course, and Jamie finally asked me out when we were graduating in 2019,” Marisa, who is known for her roles in the HBO series Industry and for playing Amy Winehouse in the biopic Back to Black, remembers. “We’ve been together ever since.”

In 2024, Jamie, who has starred in the West End shows The Devil Wears Prada and Moulin Rouge! The Musical, proposed on Primrose Hill. “This was where we met for the very first time at a meet and greet for the class of 2016. He hit on me immediately,” Marisa says. “It was amazing to be back where Jamie had literally walked into my life for the very first time.”

Jamie wanted to ensure the proposal remained a surprise, so he enlisted the help of Marisa’s friend Polly to help create a fake art show that was supposedly happening across the street from Primrose Hill. “Polly marched her up to the top of the hill and ran in the other direction when Marisa finally saw the picnic blanket and Champagne—then I came out of the trees and got on one knee,” Jamie recalls. “[Afterwards,] I took her to dinner at Bocca di Lupo, one of our favourite restaurants in London. I made up some excuse as to why we needed to go downstairs, and all of her family and friends were waiting for us in the private dining room.”

“It was the best day of my life,” Marisa adds. “The next day we already had a holiday planned in Greece, so we sort of had an ‘engagement moon’—we highly recommend it!”

The couple set their wedding date for Saturday, September 13, in East Sussex. “We took a good few months to just enjoy being engaged and celebrate during the summer,” Jamie says. “In September, we started thinking about locations, and we landed in Brighton. Marisa was born and raised there, and it’s where we spent lockdown together.”

At that point, the couple had only been together for two months. “It was a real jump in the deep end to have Jamie move in with me, my mum, and my brother instead of flying back to New York,” Marisa admits. “Miraculously, it worked!” They often spent time taking walks on the Sussex Downs or down by the sea, so Brighton began to feel like home.