By Marron Joshua F. Mendoza
Social media exploded when actress Maine Mendoza and actor and Quezon City 1st District Representative Arjo Atayde announced their engagement on Friday, July 29.
Maine announced her upcoming marriage to Atayde on her social media accounts with photos captioned, “Wait, whaaaat??? We’re engaged?!”
In the meantime, Arjo posted another set of photos of their engagement on Instagram with the caption, “My turn, I will marry you cutie,” a reference to Main’s tweet, “Arjo cutie,” posted on July 28, 2013.
Arjo proposed to Maine nine years after the tweet’s posting.
Their engagement received praise and congratulations from netizens, including celebrities such as Pia Wurtzbach, Bianca Gonzalez, Julie Anne San Jose, Pauleen Luna-Sotto, Maja Salvador, and more.
Fans of AlDub, Maine’s former on-screen pairing with Kapuso actor Alden Richards, also congratulated the couple.
Maine’s Twitter post announcing their engagement garnered 304,000 likes and 39,000 retweets, while her Instagram announcement had 824,000 likes. Meanwhile, Arjo’s Instagram post reached 608,000 likes.
Arjo’s mother, actress Sylvia Sanchez, reacted to the news in an Instagram post by welcoming Maine to the family, thanking her for loving her son and promising to take care and love her as her daughter.
Arjo’s sister, actress Ria Atayde, welcomed Maine to the family and congratulated the couple in an Instagram post, saying, “You’ve always been Mister Grand Gestures @arjoatayde. But I think among all you’ve done, this has got to be my favorite. And I think among all the changes we welcomed in our lives this year, this has got to be the best. So excited to officially welcome you into the family @mainedcm stay happy and in love! Congratulations to the two of you.”
Maine and Arjo’s engagement also became a highlight during the 43rd-anniversary celebration of Eat Bulaga!, where Maine is a regular host, on Saturday, July 30.
Maine and Arjo first appeared on-screen in the 2018 film Jack Em Popoy: The Puliscredibles with Vic Sotto and Coco Martin. They publicly announced their relationship in March 2019. Since then, they became open with their romance, with the two celebrating their 3rd anniversary last December 2021.