A dream come true … sort of! Alexa PenaVega almost got her ‘favorite’ proposal from husband Carlos PenaVega — but he got cold feet at the last minute.
“This was actually my husband’s idea and it was the way he wanted to propose to me, but didn’t get to,” Alexa, 34, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her new Hallmark movie, A Paris Proposal. “I thought it was so genius. There’s this water show on this cruise ship — he was in talks with them and chickened out last minute — where in the middle of the show,** the floor [would come] up and then all the acrobats [would] come out of the water and they’re literally lifted out of the water. He wanted to come up out of that while I’m watching the show and propose to me that way.”
While the concept, which the Spy Kids star called “wild,” “insane,” “super cool and romantic,” never came to fruition, the Big Time Rush singer, 33, still managed to pop the question overseas while the twosome were at dinner with their friends.
Now, the pair have been happily married for almost a decade and share three children: sons Ocean, 5, and Kingston, 3, and daughter Rio, 21 months. They’ve also starred together in three movies in the Picture Perfect Mysteries series for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Enchanted Christmas, Love at Sea and Love in the Limelight for Hallmark Channel.
Being able to work alongside her beau is one of the reasons Alexa loves being a part of Hallmark, whom she says has been “amazing” to their family over the years.
“They’ve given us so much amazing creative freedom to be able to bring forth projects that we really love [and] that we’re proud of,” she gushed to Us. “Earlier in our careers with Hallmark,** there weren’t many actors who were spouses working together. They were the ones that wanted to give us that opportunity to kind of make that happen. And now you see it a lot more in Hollywood, but six years ago? That wasn’t a thing. You didn’t see a whole lot of husband-wife teams on screen.”
The Florida native explained that Hallmark understands “family values” and “the importance of keeping family together” — something that feels especially important with everything that’s happened to the world in the past few years.
“You just can’t help but wanna keep the people that you care about really, really close,” she said. “And I think we’re gonna see a lot more of that in the future, just across the board in all projects.”
The Nashville alum has no plans to stop creating alongside her hubby anytime soon — and told Us that the duo are in a “season” where they are “more in love than ever.”
“We don’t say that to be, like, cheesy or dorky or whatever. But it’s like, we truly need each other so badly. Could he do it on his own? Could I do it on my own? Yeah, but, I need his love,” she shared. “I really need his support and especially in this industry that we’re in and the world that we’re in. You have to surround yourself [with] people who really bring out the best in you. And we do that for each other.”
The Spare Parts star added that the importance of finding “your teammate” in life cannot be undervalued.
“There isn’t anything else like that feeling because you get to be elevated to the point of, ‘I feel like nothing can stop me.’ I really do feel unstoppable, but that’s because I know I have a partner where if I trip, he’s gonna catch me and then we’re gonna keep going,” she said.
The Sleepover actress and boy band member may be an unstoppable duo, but that doesn’t mean Alexa is afraid to challenge herself with solo projects. Her latest film, A Paris Proposal, took her across the pond to Paris and Bulgaria — a solo adventure she says was “hard,” but needed.
“I left my family to go make this movie. And I never do that. We have, like, a very strict two-week rule, but because this was filming out of the country … It just made more sense to allow the family to stay behind on that,” she explained. “Because of that, it really gave me an opportunity.
Being on set sans her brood allowed Alexa to spend more time with the cast, attending dinners where they would “go over their lines for the next day.” The extra bonding time, according to the Tomorrow People alum, elevated the film to the next level.
“We’d talk [a lot] about the scenes and what we could add to it to kind of like make it a little bit more special or maybe a little more unique than Hallmark used to seeing,” she shared. “And I think that’s where it really shined. We were able to just do our homework.”
Sign up for Us Weekly’s free, daily newsletter and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more!
A Paris Proposal premieres on Hallmark Sunday, February 11, at 8 p.m. ET.
