WWE star Sonya Deville, the first lesbian wrestler in WWE history, slipped a ring on the finger of Toni Cassano, her fiancée, Saturday when they exchanged wedding vows, People magazine reports.
Deville, real name Daria Berenato, 30, and Cassano, 33, a fitness model, were married in front of friends and family at The Legacy Castle in New Jersey, Deville’s home state.
The wedding
The wedding came approximately one year to the day after their Feb. 15, 2023 engagement. Both women had engagement rings prepared, but Deville was first to pop the question, People says.
According to People, Cassano’s daughters, 8 and 12, played key roles on the big day — One played the piano as her mother walked down the aisle, and the other was in charge of their rings.
“They (would) say, ‘How much longer to our wedding?’” Deville tells People. “So that is how we look at it.”
WWE star Sonya Deville, the first lesbian wrestler in WWE history, slipped a ring on the finger of Toni Cassano, her fiancée, Saturday when they exchanged wedding vows, People magazine reports.
The engagement
When Deville got engaged last year, she told People magazine, “I could go on for days about the way I feel about this woman. I never knew love could feel so happy and safe all at the same time.
“I found my best friend, my soul mate and my life partner all in one incredible human,” Deville said. “She is the epitome of my ride or die. To be able to show her and her two daughters how much they all mean to me was what this proposal was all about. They are my world and now we are one family forever together.”
Looking back on her journey as a gay woman, Deville told People last year that “It’s so cool to me to be in this position right now, to be engaged as a gay female in the WWE, and to have proposed to my fiancée.
“Because I look back at seven years ago, eight years ago when I wasn’t even openly out yet, and I was hiding relationships, and I was still trying to figure out my comfortability with being gay and who I was,” she says.
At Saturday’s nuptials, WWE wrestler Bianca Belair was the flower girl, a surprise set up by Cassano, People said.
Several current and former WWE stars also attended, including Deville’s former tag team partner and close friend Amanda Saccamanno, who wrestled under the name Mandy Rose.
Maria Menounos
Media personality Maria Menounos, a long-time friend of Deville, was the officiant.
Deville described Menounos’ involvement as “really special.”
“That was one element that was really special to me. Maria and her husband Keven (Undergaro) have been a huge part of my life. They’re the reason I’m in the WWE — they introduced me to that whole world,” Deville told People. “They were my mentors back when I was 20 years old bartending in Los Angeles, so they’ve been with me the entire ride.”
“They’ve also seen some of my previous relationships and had some opinions. So when I found Toni and they met Toni, they fell in love with her the same way that I did,” Deville said. “And so to have Maria put into words — because she’s so good at that — everything that has transpired here was the perfect fit.”
Menounos described Deville and Cassano’s love for one another as “a fairytale” in a statement to People.
The couple will honeymoon in Costa Rica.
Sonya Deville continues to recover from a knee injury that abruptly ended her WWE Women’s Tag Team title reign last summer.
