Special reason: Why Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez chose August 11 for their wedding

Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez had spent months keeping the details of their wedding away from the public, with speculation repeatedly surrounding when and where they would finally marry. When they eventually tied the knot on August 11, the date itself carried a meaning that had little to do with the football calendar or the attention surrounding one of the world's most famous couples.It marked 10 years since the day Ronaldo and Rodríguez first met.Ronaldo and Rodríguez first met at a Gucci store in Madrid, where Rodríguez was working while Ronaldo was playing for Real Madrid. A decade later, they chose the anniversary of that first meeting as the day they would formally become husband and wife.The significance of August 11 was revealed in Vogue, which followed the couple's preparations for their intimate wedding and explained that Rodríguez did not want their 10-year anniversary to pass without marking it.“It’s incredible what you hear,” Rodríguez said, referring to the constant speculation about when they would marry.For weeks, reports had suggested different dates and locations, while imagined guest lists grew increasingly elaborate. Rodríguez said the reality was going to be very different.“But this has been a ‘crazy year’ of ‘work commitments, competitions, kids’,” she explained, adding that she did not want to let their 10-year anniversary slip by unmarked.That made August 11 more than simply the date they happened to have chosen for the ceremony. It brought the wedding back to the beginning of their relationship, marking the passage of a decade from their first meeting to their marriage.The circumstances surrounding their first meeting were far removed from the scale of Ronaldo's life today. Rodríguez was working at Gucci in Madrid when she met the Real Madrid forward, and their relationship subsequently developed into one of the most closely followed partnerships in sport.They eventually built a family together, with five children present at the wedding: Cristiano Jr., 16, twins Eva Maria and Mateo, nine, Alana Martina, eight, and Bella Esmeralda, four.The ceremony also included four witnesses: Rodríguez's sister Ivana, Ronaldo's longtime friend Miguel Paixão, and Spanish jeweller José Rodríguez Sangil and his wife, Mónica González Martínez.Ronaldo's mother Dolores Aveiro and his siblings Hugo, Elma and Katia were not present.The scale of the ceremony was consistent with the way Rodríguez described their decision to marry on the anniversary. Rather than trying to create a spectacle around 10 years together, they chose to make the date meaningful to the family they had built during those years.Rodríguez acknowledged that the couple could still hold a much larger celebration with their relatives and friends in the future. The August 11 ceremony was about marking the anniversary itself, however, and doing so in a way that suited their life at that moment.“In the future we will have a big wedding, so we can celebrate with family and friends,” she said.The couple instead married in the living room of their home in Cascais, surrounded by their children. Rodríguez had initially imagined a very different wedding as a child, complete with a castle, carriage, long dress and diamond crown, but said her priorities had changed.“Because castles, houses, islands, horses, cars: We have all of that within reach every day. But something intimate—that’s more unusual for us.”The choice meant that the anniversary was marked not with a large public celebration but with a private family occasion, bringing the couple back to the date on which their story began.The timing also came at a major moment in Ronaldo's life. The 41-year-old has since indicated that the current season could be his last in football, while saying that his life after the sport is already “all mapped out”.After 10 years together, August 11 consequently became both an anniversary and the date on which Ronaldo and Rodríguez began the next stage of their relationship as husband and wife.