‘Foretold’ podcast Episode 3: ‘Business Arrangements’

Before Paulina was born, her future seemed predestined: She’d marry her relative and close family friend, Bobby. They were a match written in the stars. And their wedding only augured more good things to come. Or so she thought.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript below.

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Paulina Stevens: They make you think that — sorry. I’m getting kind of emotional. They make you think that you’re, like, their property.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina was in a pretty vulnerable head space when we first met in 2019. That day in the cafe, she had recently left her community. And as she told me about her life, she said her family had arranged for her to be married. But she insisted that she had felt, functionally, auctioned off.

Paulina Stevens: They basically say, “It’s a dowry.” But it’s not. They pay for you. And then once you’re officially married, they always use it against you. They say, “We own you. We bought you.”

Faith E. Pinho: Over time she’d tell me the whole, complicated story of her marriage. And I’d come to find out it didn’t exactly unfold in the way I’d imagined an “arranged marriage” would. In fact, as Paulina remembers it, everything started one night, years ago, when she was over at a cousin’s house and their families were partying late. Or at least their fathers were.

Paulina Stevens: Our mothers were in the back room sleeping and they were like, “Just serve and entertain on your fathers.”

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina said it was up to the kids — her and her cousin Bobby — to keep the party going.

Paulina Stevens: So we had to stay up all night and sing and dance and serve them beer.

Faith E. Pinho: Bobby and Paulina were the de facto DJs.

Paulina Stevens: We were downloading music on LimeWire, right? If you guys remember what that was.

Faith E. Pinho: After hours of volleying from Romani music to hip-hop to ’N Sync to Michael Jackson, the party finally wound down, and Paulina and Bobby found themselves sort of tucked away from the commotion.

Paulina Stevens: And he looked at me and he was like, “Listen.” He was like, “I have to tell you something.” And I’m like, “What?” And he’s like, “We always knew each other our whole lives. It would make our parents so happy. Why don’t we just get married?”

Faith E. Pinho: So in their own little way, Paulina and Bobby were kinda sorta engaged. Or, like, as engaged as you can be at 12.

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I almost married the wrong person. Whose fault is that?

On the ‘Foretold’ podcast, Paulina Stevens talks about her wedding to Bobby and the sequence of events that led her there. It’s relatable.

April 25, 2023

Paulina Stevens: During that trip, we walked around his neighborhood or his house, and we had our first kiss and it was like, oh my God, that was my first kiss ever.

Faith E. Pinho: This is “Foretold.”

Paulina was pulled out of school to prepare her for the inevitable: a life of cooking, reading fortunes and marrying a Romani boy. Ideally one boy in particular: Bobby.

Paulina Stevens: How we met, I mean, we didn’t even meet, you know what I mean? We were just, I don’t know.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina and Bobby were predestined in the truest sense of the word. Even before the LimeWire night, there was another origin story that began before Paulina was even born.

Paulina said her mom and dad were young when they married — just 17 and 18 years old — and soon after their wedding, they went to stay for a while with some old family friends — relatives, in fact: John Paul and Ruby Stevens.

Paulina Stevens: And they were really close, even closer than most Gypsies are.

Faith E. Pinho: They were all about the same age. And when they were newly married, Paulina’s parents basically moved in with John Paul and Ruby.

Paulina Stevens: They lived with them, I believe, for over a year.

Faith E. Pinho: They were two couples, all in their late teens or early 20s, just starting to figure out who they were.

Paulina Stevens: And they were all hanging out with each other and they would go to the beach together. It was a fun time. These two newly married couples.

Faith E. Pinho: John Paul and Ruby weren’t only newly married, they were also new parents.

Paulina Stevens: They had Bobby at the time. He was a couple of months old.

Faith E. Pinho: So during this time, they were all together: the two sets of couples, and a little baby. And then one day, Paulina’s mom felt a little off.

Paulina Stevens: My mom had a cold. They all went to the doctor together and she’s like, “I think I have a flu or something,” and the doctor comes back and he’s like, “You’re pregnant.”

Both of the boys were there. My dad and John Paul and Ruby and my mom. And it was like, “What? I’m pregnant.” It was just this crazy shock. And right then and there, they said, “If you’re having a girl, my son is going to get married to your daughter.”

Growing up, I’ve heard this story hundreds of times from my dad and John Paul. My mom tells the story. It was just, I always heard it.

So I almost feel like even before I was born, I was conditioned into feeling or thinking that I had to marry Bobby.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina would hear this origin story over and over again because the families stayed close even when they moved apart. Bobby and his parents often visited Paulina’s family in Morro Bay. And Paulina has countless memories of driving five hours south to visit Bobby’s family.

Paulina Stevens: We’d stay there for weeks and spend the night and just party and do everything together.

Faith E. Pinho: Bobby’s family, in Southern California Romani circles, is kind of legendary.

Paulina Stevens: The name they would be called by their family members would be “the Greatest People in the World,” because they just acted like they were the greatest people in the world. And so they were like, sarcastically, “OK, we have to go to the Greatest People in the World’s house” because they always wanted the parties at their house and they would always try to be in charge of everything.

Faith E. Pinho: Whenever there was a birthday, a wedding, a funeral, the party always passed through John Paul and Ruby’s house.

Paulina Stevens: They called that house the Train Station. So there would be Gypsies in and out, in and out, dancing, singing.

Faith E. Pinho: Family members rolled through the Train Station day and night, celebrating with good food, music, drinks. And the host of every gathering was Bobby’s mom, Ruby.

Paulina Stevens: She was the matriarch of the family, for sure.

Faith E. Pinho: I’ve never met Ruby, but I’ve seen pictures of her, and she’s got dark hair, cheerful round cheeks and a small, tight smile. Her eyes are beautiful blue-green. Paulina really admired her.

Paulina Stevens: She was like an aunt to me or even a second mom. People would talk about her and be like, “She holds the family together.” So I viewed her as a very strong person since childhood.

Faith E. Pinho: But Paulina had also grown up seeing a tender side of Ruby.

Paulina Stevens: I was also very close to her. We’d sleep in the same bed for weeks. We’d watch movies together.

Faith E. Pinho: And Paulina said Ruby was fully on board with this idea that her prized oldest son would marry Paulina.

Paulina Stevens: Every time we would go there, they were mentioning it. So the women would mention it. The men would mention it. It’s something I’d hear constantly. There was never a visit that’d go by and they wouldn’t say that. Bobby and I, we didn’t really take it that seriously.

Faith E. Pinho: Because growing up, Paulina and Bobby felt more like siblings.

Paulina Stevens: We’d play video games together. And on top of that, he would even tell me, “Oh, this is the girl I’m dating” or whatever. We were really bonded to each other in ways that a brother and sister would be. And I used to say that. I used to say, “Oh, I could never marry him. He’s like my bro.”

Faith E. Pinho: So why were their families holding out for Bobby and Paulina? Well, they checked the boxes that a traditional Romani family might look for when setting up their kids.

For one, the two families were already close. Check. They were in the same ethnic subgroup, the Machvaya. Check. The fact that Bobby and Paulina were extended cousins — it’s somewhat common among Romani couples in the U.S. Paulina and Bobby even had the same last name.

Paulina Stevens: I was Stevens. He was Stevens. We were both a part of the same group. He was the oldest. I was the oldest. He had two younger brothers. I had two younger sisters. We related to each other in that way. We both came from the same culture. Except his family — he came from money and we didn’t, and I didn’t.

Faith E. Pinho: There was a notable class divide between Bobby and Paulina, which is interesting because both families made their money the same way: fortunetelling. It’s just that Bobby’s family ran a bigger shop in a bigger town. They had one of the most prominent psychic shops in Orange County. But Bobby didn’t seem spoiled or anything. In fact, quite the opposite.

Paulina Stevens: Because at a young age, he was just in charge of so many things. Like he had to drive, even when he didn’t have a license, to pick up his grandmother’s medicines. Or he had to pay bills. Or he had to take care of his family’s affairs. He just did things that the other boys my age, even in the culture, didn’t do.

Faith E. Pinho: So as Paulina grew older, she started to appreciate Bobby’s dependability. And she started to notice him a little differently.

Paulina Stevens: I would describe him as someone who was responsible as a kid, right, because that’s when I started viewing him as potentially a partner, around 13, right? Twelve.

Faith E. Pinho: Maybe it was the years of hearing everyone say they were perfect for each other. Or maybe she was developing a crush. I mean, Bobby was charming.

Paulina Stevens: He was very creative. So that was one thing. Like, he would always play guitar.

Faith E. Pinho: And he had these clear blue eyes, sort of like his mom’s. The family even nicknamed him Bobby Blue Eyes. He was fun and sweet, and Paulina said that sometimes, during bustling parties at the Train Station, he’d serenade her.

Paulina Stevens: He would play songs for me and stuff. It was sweet, you know, in the beginning. We were both just so young.

Faith E. Pinho: So by the time she was 12, it had been a long ramp up to the LimeWire night. But Bobby’s proposition still took Paulina by surprise.

Paulina Stevens: It was maybe 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning. We were both exhausted.

Faith E. Pinho: Bobby was suggesting he and Paulina get married.

Paulina Stevens: And it felt very intimate in that moment.

You know, he was leaning up next to me and I was super young and I was like, “I’m barely in the same room as boys.” He was almost one of the only boys that I dealt with. So it was intimate for me. And I was just kind of shocked. I didn’t really know what to say. I was like, “I guess?” But it kind of felt like a proposal, I guess.

Faith E. Pinho: But as you’ll hear, this is not really how official proposals go in Romani families. This little agreement on the LimeWire night was just between them. This quiet moment they had carved out for themselves, not really sure of what they had agreed to, but sure they couldn’t tell their parents yet.

So after the sun rose and the LimeWire music faded away, Paulina knew she would have to head back to Morro Bay with her parents while Bobby would stay at the Train Station. She didn’t know how they’d keep in touch. Because, you know, they were, like, 12 and they didn’t have phones. And so whatever came next felt daunting and dramatic.

The next morning, before Paulina left, they had a very serious discussion about it over a game of “Grand Theft Auto.”

Paulina Stevens: He said to me, he looked at me and he’s like, “So now you’re just going to leave me and go back to Morro Bay, and I’ll never hear from you again?” And I was like, “Yeah, probably. I don’t have a phone.” And he said, he was like, “Just find a way. Just call me.” And so I ended up just calling him from the house phone.

Faith E. Pinho: Which was sort of risky. Because if you ever lived with a landline, you know that your parents could pick up and listen to you at any time, and Paulina did not want her parents to hear her talking to Bobby. Even though they had basically been set up as children, Paulina said she and Bobby had to keep their phone calls and messages on the DL.

Paulina Stevens: Because if we got caught, it was bad. That’s the contradicting thing about it, is your parents want you to get married to someone, but they don’t want you to talk to them or they don’t want you to meet them.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina said this was a contradictory message she heard a lot as a kid: You need to get married, but also, don’t go talking to boys.

Paulina Stevens: And so any time we would talk or meet, it was more exciting because relationships and dates in general were so taboo.

Faith E. Pinho: When Paulina’s parents inevitably found out about her budding romance with Bobby, their response was — well, let’s just say it was nuanced. Especially her dad’s.

Paulina Stevens: He was devastated because, like, “I know I pushed you to do this. I want you to get married.” I’m supposed to feel ashamed and also supposed to feel like this is what my dad wants for me and has been nagging for this to happen. He was like, “Oh, this is what I wanted, but I’m sad that my little girl is getting married at the same time.”

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina said that Bobby’s family, on the other hand, was thrilled.

Paulina Stevens: They’re talking to each other like, “Let’s just figure this out and make it work and do it ASAP.”

Faith E. Pinho: To celebrate, the two families threw a party called a swato, which translates to “a word.” Like, “swato” is the word for “word.” It’s basically a huge party before the official engagement party because, as you’ll hear, there are about to be lots of parties on the road to official marriage.

In the swato, Bobby’s family asks Paulina’s family for her hand in marriage. They give her family their word. Get it? So it’s not the engagement, it’s the promise of the engagement. Paulina was 14 during her swato, and Bobby’s family lavished her with expensive presents.

Paulina Stevens: They give me jewelry, they buy me gifts and they say, “We officially want you to marry your son.” And my family then has to say, “We open our door to you. We accept your request.”

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina remembers getting a Tiffany’s necklace with a locket in the shape of a heart. And this locket, in fact, had a key. But the key to the locket did not go to Bobby. So who held the key? She said it was Bobby’s mom, Ruby.

That should have been the first warning that something was off. But it wouldn’t be the last.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a little kid, pretty much every time I had a crush, I was certain that I was going to marry them. No one else really took it that seriously, though. I cannot imagine what it would have been like if my parents had been like, “Yes, OK, go for it. Marry them.”

But in Romani culture, marriage between young people is a serious matter. It’s not just the union of two people, but the coming together of two families.

For centuries, Romani marriages have worked to keep certain subgroups together: Machvaya with Machvaya, Kalderash with Kalderash. And that, in turn, helps keep traditions among these subgroups intact. It preserves families.

Ian Hancock: Your son with his daughter or your daughter with his son. That is to unite the families.

Faith E. Pinho: Our expert, professor Ian Hancock.

Ian Hancock: Marriages are big deals. They are not love matches in the Western way. They are kind of business arrangements.

Faith E. Pinho: When professor Hancock says “business arrangements,” he means that literally. Traditionally, the daughter-in-law is expected to go work for her new family in their business, sometimes as a fortuneteller. So these marriages, they’re a wedding and a merger and a hire all in one, and everyone knows it.

Ian Hancock: Generally you grow up expecting this to be the case. You understand from when you’re tiny that the day will come when you will get married off and join a different family.

Faith E. Pinho: But professor Hancock made the point that marriage is a mutual arrangement.

Ian Hancock: Although it’s true that the girls can — they can resist. They can say, “No, I don’t want to do this. I don’t like him. He looks funny.”

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina somewhat agrees with that assessment. At least, she did at the beginning, when she and Bobby first got together. She said she considers it an arranged marriage, but it wasn’t totally forced on her either.

Paulina Stevens: That’s why I don’t call it a forced marriage. I did — we did want to be with each other. I did have feelings. It’s not like I didn’t — not have feelings and it was all about just getting married. We did like each other. But it was easier because we were friends first.

Faith E. Pinho: The thing that Paulina has a hard time with is the age thing. Because at the time that her engagement was really ramping up, Paulina was only 15 years old. Which is, honestly, fairly typical in some Romani circles.

Doru Moïse: How do you bring somebody that’s 13, 14 years old as a bride in the church? Without even a legal marriage certificate?

Faith E. Pinho: This is Doru Moïse. He’s the pastor of an evangelical Romani church in Riverside, California, and he’s a part of an international effort to raise the minimum marrying age for Romani brides.

Doru Moïse: They put so much influence on girls being virgin and tradition. But they pulled all young girls out of education. They don’t send them to school no more because they want to marry her off. So we had a conference specifically on this topic.

Faith E. Pinho: There have been efforts among different Romani groups to raise the minimum age of marriage. This specific conference Pastor Moise is talking about was held in Romania back in 2014.

Doru MoĂŻse: The results of the conference was that we as religious workers will not perform any weddings, any blessings, of any couple that the girl is younger than 16 years old. And that 16 year old was a big compromise.

Faith E. Pinho: I was going to say, that’s still pretty young.

Doru MoĂŻse: Are you kidding me? Everybody was pushing 14. We tried 18.

Faith E. Pinho: Yeah.

Doru MoĂŻse: And we had it on 16.

Faith E. Pinho: Now, Romani people are not the only ones doing this. California is one of the few states where it is legal to marry if you’re under 18 as long as you have parental consent and a judge’s stamp of approval.

But it really didn’t matter what the legal standing was in the state of California. Paulina and Bobby would never technically get married under U.S. law.

Paulina Stevens: It’s pretty common that there is no legal marriage in our community, especially American Gypsies.

Faith E. Pinho: According to the Harvard study, 22% of Romani American interviewees stated that no one in their family has a marriage certificate. A lot of Romani marriages are kept outside the American legal system and kept inside the community. These marriages are, in fact, all about community.

Paulina Stevens: I would tell them, “Yeah, I’m too young” or “I don’t want to do this.” And then I would hear things back like, “We don’t have to move forward with it, but you’ll be disappointing a lot of people.” And it was about pride, like, “This is your father’s pride.” And, “What are you going to do? Live on your own? You have to get married someday.” So to a certain extent, I felt like I had a choice, but if I chose another way, it would just be suffering.

Faith E. Pinho: The machine was in motion. The families were going back and forth over when the wedding would be, discussing venues and details, while Paulina and Bobby’s actual relationship took a back seat. Over the years it took to get to the wedding, Bobby and Paulina were still living in different cities. They were each growing up and growing apart.

Paulina Stevens: I was having so much fun with all my cousins. We were going out, and there were street races and fake IDs.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina and Bobby were developing their own interests, their own worlds, their own ideas of themselves. And though they were planning a wedding, Paulina said she was hearing rumors that Bobby was messing around with other girls.

Paulina Stevens: He said something or did something, and girls were calling me, and it was like, I don’t want to get married anymore. It’s so stupid.

Faith E. Pinho: And this is Paulina’s side of the story — obviously. I tried really hard to get Bobby’s point of view for this. I even met him once, back in 2021.

Asal Ehsanipour: What just happened?

Faith E. Pinho: We rang the doorbell and Bobby came to the door. He’s 26 or so, which is my age.

Faith E. Pinho: I went to Bobby’s door with senior producer Asal Ehsanipour just to try to talk to him. He wasn’t interested. But he was super calm and cordial — I’d say even polite — as he turned us away. And Asal can verify they call him Bobby Blue Eyes for a reason.

Asal Ehsanipour: They’re, like, piercing.

Faith E. Pinho: Yeah.

Asal Ehsanipour: His eyes are so blue.

Faith E. Pinho: They are very, very blue.

Faith E. Pinho: So I can’t get you Bobby’s perspective in his own words. But for what it’s worth, I can understand it. I mean, imagine being a teenager and being told that you can’t flirt or hook up with anyone because you have to marry a cousin who lives in another city. As much as Paulina gets upset, she can understand it too.

Paulina Stevens: As much as I was wanting for our relationship to be completely monogamous, I also really didn’t expect it from him, even at that time. I knew that it was hard for him. I knew that there was still more he wanted to explore in his life. I had essentially locked him down at 12 or 13, you know what I’m saying? Now that I’m older, I’m past that and I realize that how could he have been anything better than what he was? He was a kid.

Part of me just felt like he wanted to make his family happy. And a part of me felt like I just wanted to make my family happy.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina and Bobby’s relationship was no longer that sweet little-kid crush. Slowly, their perfect pairing was starting to unravel, and Paulina’s destiny wasn’t looking so perfect anymore.

Paulina Stevens: I had doubts all the time. But I was more of thinking about, “Maybe this could get better.” That’s kind of what was going through my mind. I was just convincing myself that I had made the right choice.

Faith E. Pinho: Did you tell anyone those doubts?

Paulina Stevens: Yeah, I did. My boy cousins were kind of like my brothers, and so we were going clubbing. I was having a blast. And I was like, “I don’t need it. I don’t need to get married.”

So one of my cousins drove me out somewhere in L.A. and he’s like, “Let’s just talk.” And we were talking and we — I think we went to this weird club somewhere in the Valley. And we were just laughing, like, “How the f— did we get here?” And he’s like, “If you really don’t want to move forward with the marriage, I’ll go tell Bobby right now.”

It really didn’t come down to my decision or wanting to get married or wanting to start my life. It really came down to needing to make my parents happy. And I was like, “I guess I’ll just do it. Whatever. F— it. Let me just, I’ll just get married.”

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina said she pushed down her doubts. She did what was expected of her, going along with what everyone said was a match written in the stars. And so when Paulina was 16, she and Bobby had their tumnyala.

Paulina Stevens: In American terms, it would just be an engagement party.

Faith E. Pinho: This one is the actual engagement party. The previous party, the swato, was just the promise of the engagement. But the tumnyala is like an engagement party crossed with a wedding and a quinceañera, all in one. I’ve seen pictures, and it’s incredible. Paulina’s tumnyala had dozens of people gathered in a hotel ballroom.

Paulina Stevens: Very big ballroom, yellow lighting.

Faith E. Pinho: Everything is gold themed. A seven-tier cake decorated with gold bows. Gold satin seat covers around every banquet table. The men in their family are in gold ties and pocket squares, and the women are in gold floor-length gowns.

Paulina Stevens: People are dressed to the nines, very long dresses. You can see the women wearing these long headscarves.

Faith E. Pinho: Then Paulina makes her dramatic entrance, looking stunning. She’s wearing a cream-colored gown that’s intricately embroidered and glittering with sequins, all the way down to the feather fringe that dusts the floor. She’s dripping in jewelry. Her hair is done up like a beehive with a white feathery hairpiece clipped to the back, and she’s wearing glossy red lipstick. She looks like a movie star.

Paulina Stevens: By the time I walked in, I was feeling great, you know?

Faith E. Pinho: Bobby is spiffy in a blue suit that matches his eyes. I can’t get over how young he looks. He’s 17 but could pass for 14. He and Paulina mingle and pose and smile for pictures with almost every member of their families.

Everyone except with each other. They’re posing separately because the couple is not allowed to really be seen talking to each other until they’re married. But Bobby and Paulina wanted to do things at least a little differently.

Paulina Stevens: So while I was getting my hair done, he came to my hotel room and brought me an engagement ring and said, “Will you marry me?” As a joke.

Faith E. Pinho: A joke because, according to Paulina, this is so not the traditional Romani way to get engaged. Like, at all.

Paulina Stevens: And we kind of wanted to incorporate American tradition, but it really had nothing to do with our tradition.

Faith E. Pinho: Because Paulina’s tradition is not between two people. It’s between two families. That’s the whole point of this massive engagement blowout. There’s this big moment when the two families come together to negotiate a dowry. A dozen or so men from each family sit on opposite sides of a long table.

And there ensues this kind of charade of negotiation. They’re there to talk business, but really there’s lots of laughing and ribbing each other. A crowd gathers behind them, cheering them on.

Paulina Stevens: Honestly, the men just sit there and joke for hours. And so they’re like, “We want $100,000.” So the whole thing is just a big joke.

Faith E. Pinho: There’s plenty of drinks to go around. One family’s side offers an amount. The other side comes back with a different number.

Paulina Stevens: My dad would be like, “Oh, you know, I want, yeah, $100,000, $200,000.” And then they would say, “We’ll give you a dollar.” It’s just this funny thing that would go back and forth. And then they would talk about, “Well, what if she doesn’t bring me coffee?”

Faith E. Pinho: Both sides play into the shtick for hours. And I say “shtick” because it is sort of a performance-like ritual. Sometimes it includes things like a fancy car. But Paulina’s dowry didn’t have any of that. She says it was just money.

Paulina Stevens: I think it was like $4,800.

Faith E. Pinho: And with that, Paulina’s dowry was set. Or at least that’s how it sounds to me.

Ian Hancock: This is where journalists misinterpret what it is. “Gypsies sell their daughters.” Well, you’re not selling your daughter. It’s a dowry.

Faith E. Pinho: Professor Hancock again.

Ian Hancock: The amount is explained as, “Well, you are taking away my daughter. My daughter’s incredible, and if I lose her to you, I am losing a lot of income. Because now she will be working, a source of income for you, not for me. And so you have to show that you recognize her value.”

Faith E. Pinho: I don’t know. I mean, I’m not trying to pass judgment. I’m trying to understand, and I guess it would — it would feel kind of strange to have someone give money to have me marry their son.

Ian Hancock: Even if it were a dowry to help you buy a new kitchen set and a new set of furniture for your new home?

Faith E. Pinho: Oh, that’s interesting. So, yeah, you’re seeing it as an investment basically?

Ian Hancock: ’Course.

Faith E. Pinho: Hmmm.

Faith E. Pinho: The way professor Hancock put it, it’s like a wedding present, a big initial investment in the couple. And arguably, American weddings have the same thing; it’s just done through the elaborate ordeal of the wedding registry or the wedding shower.

I’m not saying all weddings are the same. I’m just trying to say that many cultures’ weddings are also full of elaborate rituals that are subtly about ownership and money and finances. It’s just that Romani wedding rituals really come out and say it.

Paulina Stevens: You have to wear a coin that signifies you are now the property of the family that you’re getting married to.

Faith E. Pinho: After the dowry was negotiated and agreed upon, Paulina was given a gold coin necklace on a thick gold chain that she wore around her neck.

Paulina Stevens: So it’s the ceremony where they put this coin of ownership on you. And you still get to go back with your family, but you go back with the coin. So now, whenever you go to a public party or a birthday, an engagement, anywhere where there’ll be other Gypsies, you have to wear the coin.

Faith E. Pinho: The gold coin necklace showed everyone — their families, their communities — that Paulina was officially pledged to marry Bobby. But unofficially, Paulina was still having doubts. She was still hearing stories that Bobby might have a wandering eye.

Paulina Stevens: And I said that I don’t want to do this anymore and I’m done.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina decided to call the whole thing off.

Paulina Stevens: I think I told Bobby, too, over the phone and I was like, “Hey, we’re done. Don’t call me anymore. I’m telling my parents now. I’ll always love you as a friend or as a brother, but I just don’t think we’re a good match for each other.” And I hung up the phone and turned it off, and I felt good about it. I wasn’t going through like massive heartbreak or anything.

Faith E. Pinho: I’m trying to consider this from Paulina’s parents’ perspective. I mean, they’d just celebrated with two massive parties, arranged a whole dowry. By the way, Paulina said they gave the dowry back to her and Bobby in order to give them a start in their marriage.

So her parents genuinely wanted to support their daughter. And they probably thought this marriage would be good for her long-term future. They didn’t want to just change plans all of a sudden.

Paulina Stevens: My dad couldn’t talk to me directly about it because that was considered disrespectful. So he would have to relay messages through my mom.

I think my mom got how I was feeling. And then she called Ruby, Bobby’s mom, and the very next weekend, I believe, his parents came to our house and he came and they wanted to talk it out and stuff. So normally I’d have to serve them coffee and cook and put on this little show, right? And I didn’t do that the first two days. I didn’t really care. I was like, “Whatever.” I was playing my PlayStation and just doing my thing.

My mom and Ruby, I felt like they asked me so many times during that visit, “Are you sure?” “Are you sure?” “Are you sure?” “Are you sure?” “Are you sure?” And they wouldn’t stop asking me until I said, “No, I’m not sure. I guess we’ll just be together.”

So then at the end of the visit, it ended up being me just giving in and being like, “OK, I guess.” And that’s kind of what they do. The parents just get together and try to mend everything back.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina and Bobby’s parents teamed up to save the engagement. And this time, they hoped, they could keep them together in time for the wedding.

Five years after the LimeWire night — five years of secret courtship, of public announcements, of lavish parties, of doubts and reconciliation — finally, it was their wedding day. Paulina and Bobby were now 17 and 18 years old, respectively, on October 28, 2012.

Paulina Stevens: There are no written invitations. It’s mostly just phone calls. They tell you the address over the phone and the dates, the hotel. There’s families and there’s kids and then there’s parents too, and just everybody.

Faith E. Pinho: Hundreds of family, friends and total strangers arrive.

Paulina Stevens: They invite people all over the world.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina said they lost count after 500 people. All in the same hotel.

Paulina Stevens: We will rent out a whole floor. Everyone’s rooms are connected, and so everyone opens their doors and we just go from room to room, visiting everyone, bringing them appetizers. By like 1 in the afternoon, everyone’s drunk already.

There’s music, playing instruments. Everyone’s bringing their Bluetooth speakers or putting their phones on. It’s a party. All the girls are getting ready on the left side. All the men are getting ready on the right side.

Faith E. Pinho: It’s all a big continuous party leading up to the main event in the hotel ballroom. It officially starts with Paulina’s first dress of the night: the walk-in dress.

Paulina Stevens: So a walk-in dress is the dress that the parents walk their daughter in, and it’s not really the wedding dress. It’s kind of your last chance to dress as a bachelor.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina’s dress was custom made, covered from head to toe in crystals.

Paulina Stevens: The dress is super heavy. I think it’s 40 pounds or something.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina and her family make their grand entrance.

Paulina Stevens: All the girl’s family has to walk the girl in.

Faith E. Pinho: As is the custom in the Machvaya subgroup, many of the female guests come wearing their wedding dresses too. Long white veils, glittering jewelry, the whole shebang.

Paulina Stevens: So we all walk in and they instantly put on this Gypsy music. Out of respect, the groom’s family has to bring the bride’s parents alcohol or drinks as soon as they walk in. And it’s really loud and then you’re just dancing.

I have to go and dance with everyone. I have to dance with my family first, is the most important, because I’m wearing my dress. And once I’m done with dancing with every family member — so that’s every cousin, every aunt, every uncle, every grandparent — then I have to dance with the groom’s family too.

And then after midnight, you have to change everything: your hair stuff, your bobby pins, your underwear, all of it.

Faith E. Pinho: This outfit change is to signify she’s part of the groom’s family now. Out with the old, in with the new.

After years of waiting, with this change of dress, Paulina and Bobby’s union is sealed. Paulina shows this with her second dress: another big white gown. But this one has a heavy silver crown with a cascading veil. Which she proceeds to party super hard in.

Paulina Stevens: I think around 3 in the morning, the hotel staff is shutting the lights off and getting mad at everybody. And everyone’s just now dancing and drinking in the hallways. Some people were just drinking all night.

Faith E. Pinho: And this is just the first of three days.

Paulina Stevens: After the first day of the wedding, you are technically considered married, but you’re not allowed to sleep in the same room until the second day.

So the first day of the wedding after midnight, the boy and the girl go into either a limo — we actually had a horse and carriage — and we go with these other couples out to eat at a Denny’s or something.

Faith E. Pinho: I love that they took a horse and carriage to a Denny’s. Honestly, Paulina said it was a super fun night. Because what’s better than ending a late-night party with some good greasy food? But it’s not like they could be decadent and sleep in. Paulina and Bobby had to wake up bright and early the next day for a special coffee tradition.

Paulina Stevens: Bobby and I are serving the coffee to everyone.

Faith E. Pinho: “Everyone,” meaning the men.

Paulina Stevens: So there’s hundreds of men lined up on this long table and you think that with all the commotion and drama that’s going on, people will just take a black cup of coffee. But no, these men are very, like, “Two spoons of sugar and a little bit cream and a little water on top.” Just very specific. So we have to make sure everyone gets their coffee.

Faith E. Pinho: And part of this tradition is that the men each pay for their coffee.

Paulina Stevens: So usually for every cup of coffee, you’re getting anywhere from 100 to 500.

Faith E. Pinho: And you thought your coffee shop got expensive! But Paulina said this is another tradition intended to give the newlyweds a financial head start. She said it was her favorite part of the whole wedding. And then came more partying. More singing, more dancing.

Paulina Stevens: They’ve been there a day or two before. So these people have been drinking for three, four days straight from morning till night with all of their family, playing music. And they are very exhausted, but they’re still drinking.

Faith E. Pinho: And then Day 2 begins to fade into Day 3.

Paulina Stevens: And so you still have to party hard on the third day. It’s tradition.

Faith E. Pinho: On the third day, they have one final rally. Everyone’s crowded into the ballroom and a cheer goes up as Paulina enters on the arm of her new father-in-law, John Paul. Draped around her neck is the gold coin necklace, and she’s wearing a massive red dress fringed with feathers.

Paulina Stevens: The red dress is there to signify that you’ve had sex.

Faith E. Pinho: So now Paulina wears the red dress — along with a long headscarf, signifying that she’s a married girl now. By the end of three days, Paulina was spent.

Paulina Stevens: I was so happy that the wedding was over because you just build up like all this anxiety. And it was really painful. The crown that they put on me was Bobby’s grandmother’s that she wore.

Faith E. Pinho: It was so, so heavy. Paulina said they had to pin the crown to her head.

Paulina Stevens: When they pulled it out, chunks of my hair came out and there was blood. And the women were just like, “That happens to everyone. Don’t worry about it.”

Both of my dresses scarred me and I was bruised by the end of it. Hundreds of people are pulling your hands, and I think I twisted my ankle. It sounds great and fun, but you’re exhausted. You’re beat up. I was 17. I was like 95 pounds. And it was really difficult. It was really fun. I felt like I had finally accomplished, I don’t know, making my parents happy. But then they got so emotional at the end.

Faith E. Pinho: Because they all knew what would happen the next day. Paulina would move out. She would officially leave her family to go live with Bobby and his parents. Paulina was no longer her mom and dad’s daughter. She was John Paul and Ruby’s family now.

Paulina Stevens: It’s pretty emotional because it’s the last party day that you spend with your family, and it was scary ’cause now I go home with his family.

Faith E. Pinho: And even though Paulina had grown up with John Paul and Ruby, she had a feeling that something would be different. Because on the very first night of the wedding, just as Paulina and Bobby were about to load into the carriage on the way to Denny’s, Ruby pulled her aside.

Paulina Stevens: And that night, my mother-in-law came and was like, “Listen, you know, I’m the boss of you now.”

Faith E. Pinho: Ruby has not confirmed this story, by the way. She wouldn’t respond to my request for comment. But Paulina said she still remembers Ruby’s tone.

Paulina Stevens: Very nonchalant, like, “OK. Just so you know, now I’m your boss, so you have to do what I say,” and she used the word “gazda.” In our language, that means “landlord.” It means, “I’m the landlord over you.” Like “owner,” I guess. But I do remember thinking, “That’s weird.” She never said that to me before.

Faith E. Pinho: Paulina hadn’t internalized that a marriage to Bobby was a marriage to her in-laws. Moving in with them, working with them — this was what she had been told to expect. But in practice and, slowly, over time, it wasn’t what she’d imagined for herself at all.

Paulina Stevens: It’s not about how the past was bad. It’s just about how sour everything turned.

Faith E. Pinho: Stay tuned next week to find out what the future holds on “Foretold.”