Teresina Hueso, nursing junior from San Diego, and Jake Hebert, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and management junior from Bayou Pigeon, were married on Nov. 9 in the Quad.
A few hours after the Veteran’s Day ceremony at Nicholls, several student veterans returned to the Quad to witness the wedding.
Pastor Hilton Johns, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and history freshman from Callahan, Florida, performed the ceremony and two Nicholls staff members, Brandy Burbante, library specialist, and Gilberto Burbante, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and coordinator of veterans services, also served as the couple’s witnesses.
Hebert met Johns or “Bubba” at Nicholls, and when the couple decided to get married on campus, they chose the pastor as their power of attorney.
The closeness of the student veteran community was apparent as the couple’s friends made jokes about the car still running and Mexico being “good this time of year” in case Hebert or Hueso wanted to make a quick escape.
With a guest list of less than 20, friends took pictures and videos to send to Hueso’s parents in San Diego.
After a picturesque ceremony among the oak trees, the guests said a prayer to bless the couple and their life together before moving on to a small reception in the new Nicholls Veterans Lounge.
The guests enjoyed drinks and pieces of a dainty and beautifully decorated two-tiered wedding cake, and they chatted in their familiar surroundings. The Nicholls Veterans Lounge is a common place for student veterans to meet, furnished with couches and a television.
Hueso and Hebert met on a plane ride to San Diego when Hebert was on leave from the Marine Corps. Hueso was returning home from a visit to Georgia and Hebert was leaving his homestate of Louisiana.
“We just happened to sit next to each other,” Hueso said. “I just started talking because I was bored and even though we didn’t start dating until almost a year later, we kept in touch.”
Hebert said meeting Hueso was a blessing during that transitional period in his life.
“I had just gotten out of the Marine Corps, and it was a lot to take in so I planned to live in California for a little while,” Hebert said. “Then I met her and that was my gift.”
“I think it was just meant to be, meeting and keeping in touch after all that time,” Hueso added.
With Hebert’s parents living in Plaquemine and Hueso’s brother in Georgia, the couple was looking at possible places to move. Hueso applied to Nicholls and was accepted.
“I decided to come to school here, and I figured in the worst case scenario, I could always just go back home,” Hueso said.
The couple said that Nicholls was an obvious choice for the wedding.
“It just made sense because I love Nicholls, and it is such a big part of my life,” Hueso said. “It means more to get married here than somewhere in the area I’ve never been.”
The couple chose to embrace their student veteran family, and because everyone was on campus for the Veteran’s Day ceremony, the setting and date made sense.
“We wanted to do something small, and since her family couldn’t come, everyone else we know is here at Nicholls,” Hebert said. “Our friends are all like family, and they’ve been through the same things that I have.”
With Hebert’s birthday on the day of the wedding and the official founding date of the Marine Corps on Nov. 10, the group of friends said they were in for a weekend of celebration.
“We made history,” Hueso said. “We’ll always be remembered as the veteran who got married by a veteran on campus. That’ll probably never happen again here.”