To Daphne Zuniga, David Mleczko Felt like a Husband Even before Their Wedding

Daphne Zuniga did not grow up wanting to get married. She had seen enough marriages growing up, both successful and unsuccessful, including of her own parents, and did not want to give up what she had built in her career.

However, that all changed when she met her husband, David Mleczko. After being with him for 12 years and being engaged for two years and a half, she was finally ready to get married.

And even that readiness resulted from a bit of sibling pressure and a realization that he was THE one for her.

The Real Reason Daphne Zuniga Married Her Husband, David Mleczko

Zuniga and Mleczko first met on a blind date in 2007. The Melrose Place actress had never married before, but Mleczko, a businessman, already had three kids with his ex wife.

They hit it off and thus began their about-a-decade-long dating life. They went through "so much together," as she put it in her 2019 interview with People.

And as the years went by, Zuniga felt more and more like he was THE one for her.

"I already knew I’d be with him forever," she told People. She had felt he was "like a husband" even before they got engaged. Nevertheless, her doubts about marriage were still there.

Mleczko proposed to Zuniga in early 2017, which invited a bit of pressure from her side of the family, especially her sister.

"At a family dinner [her sister] toasted everybody and said, ‘When are you going to make my sister an honest woman?'" the actress recalled. That query, something she identified as "cliche" set something off within her.

The open request Mleczko got from her sister also put a "bug" in her, and she started to feel like maybe she should get married after all.

Before getting into a relationship with her husband, she was hyper-focused at work. She did not let relationships impede her career.

"I also associated marrying someone with giving up who I was," she told Glamour in August 2019. "And the last thing I wanted was to feel pressure to give up a career that I had worked so hard for."

After the marriage bug set in, though, not only did she realize Mleczko was the one for her, but she also realized that the timing was perfect.

"It just feels like a new adventure. It was right for me, waiting that long," Zuniga confessed to People. She felt like her marriage happened exactly when it should have.

Daphne Zuniga and David Mleczko’s Private Wedding

Following a two-and-a-half-year engagement, Zuniga and Mleczko said their vows on June 8, 2019. They chose the Oleana Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as their wedding venue.

Daphne Zuniga with her husband, David Mleczko, on their wedding day on June 8, 2019. (Photo: Instagram)

Theirs was a private, intimate ceremony that only about 30 of their closest people attended. Also in attendance was People magazine, which wrote of their wedding a few days after the nuptials.

"It feels amazing," the actress confided to the publication after the nuptials. "I'm overwhelmed every day with tears, like 'Oh my God, how can it feel so much more than it was already?' But it does."

The actress had one fear going into her wedding, which is also the reason she wanted it to be a private affair. She was afraid she would get into acting mode at her own wedding.

"I always had this fear of having too big of a wedding that I’d feel like I was going to be acting or performing because I’ve been a bride on-screen," she told People just days before the wedding. "In real life, I wanted it to be more poignant and private."