All About the Actors’ Marriage

Alexa and Carlos PenaVega are in big time love.

The Spy Kids star and the Big Time Rush member were introduced by a mutual friend at a Bible study meeting in 2012. Instead of jumping into a relationship, they prioritized developing a friendship with their shared faith at the base of their connection. Carlos told The War Cry in 2020 that he wanted “things to move quick” with Alexa but she insisted they took things slowly.

“She wanted to be friends first, friends second, friends third and friends fourth. But I was persistent, and church was really the basis of our relationship,” Carlos said. “She would pick me up and we’d go to church together, and that is kind of how we started our whole relationship.”

Carlos proposed in 2013, and the duo wed in January 2014. Shortly after their marriage, they competed in the 21st season of Dancing with the Stars, becoming the first married couple to be on the dance competition series.

With their shared faith as the foundation for their marriage, they co-wrote their 2022 book, What If Love Is the Point? to share their personal “perspectives” on religion. That same year, Alexa and Carlos explained to The War Cry that the book is “unique and cool” because it highlights “their story but told from both of us.”

“We talk about our childhoods, the way we grew up, how we got into this industry and how we struggled through some of the times when we weren’t connecting with God,” Alexa said. “And through all that, it kind of leads us to where we are today. It’s a lot about our lives and how we got here today, but there are so many awesome life lessons that came up as we’re writing the book.”

From their experience competing against each other on Dancing with the Stars to their life with their children, here’s everything to know about Alexa and Carlos PenaVega’s relationship. 

Alexa and Carlos met through a mutual friend at a Bible study

Even though Alexa and Carlos are immersed in the entertainment industry, they crossed paths outside of work. A mutual friend introduced them during a Bible study. The Big Time Rush star told The War Cry in 2020 that he had known who Alexa was because of her starring role in the Spy Kids franchise but that she had “no idea” who he was.

“I became so nervous I actually started quoting Spy Kids, which did not work because she told our mutual friend I was so weird,” Carlos recalled. Their mutual friend, Andrew, insisted they would be the perfect match and encouraged them to attend a Bible study session at his house.

“Andrew invited us. I’ve known him since I was 13 years old, and Carlos has known him since he was 18,” Alexa told The War Cry. “Andrew would tell us that we were very compatible. He would always say things like, ‘You have to meet. You two just have to meet,’ but the timing never worked out.”

By chance, the night they met was the Nickelodeon star’s first time attending a Bible study.

“I had never been to a Bible study before, and when I went to my first one, I met Alexa,” Carlos said. “It’s really cool that our whole relationship has kind of started in our faith.”

They started dating when Carlos was filming Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush

Alexa and Carlos’ relationship blossomed during one of the busiest times in Carlos’ career. He told The War Cry that “Alexa would come by almost every day” while he was filming Nickelodeon’s teen sitcom Big Time Rush, which starred himself, Kendall Schmidt, Logan Henderson and James Maslow.

To balance their work and relationship, Alexa and Carlos set clear “boundaries” for each other from day one and eventually “started looking at our careers a little differently” as they grew as a couple.

“We were both kind of growing in our relationship but at the same time also growing in our relationship with God and our faith,” Alexa said. “If you look at the roles that I was taking back then versus the roles that I take now, they look very different because we set new boundaries for ourselves.”

“We were navigating how to make them coincide with one another but it was just kind of the beginning of navigating it all,” she added. 

They got married in 2014 

Alexa was married to Napoleon Dynamite producer Sean Covel for two years before she met Carlos. She split from her first husband in 2012 and got engaged to Carlos in 2013. They tied the knot on Jan. 4, 2014, in a ceremony in Mexico and celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in January 2024.

The couple commemorated the milestone with a joint post on Instagram, sharing photos from early in their relationship and their wedding day. “10 years of being married to you! Excited for this new chapter that God has for us! #happyanniversary,” Carlos wrote to Alexa in the post’s caption.

They competed on the same season of Dancing with the Stars 

Alexa and Carlos made history within the Dancing with the Stars franchise as the first married couple to compete on the show in 2015. They were cast in season 21 and shared their weekly thoughts about the competition with PEOPLE at the time.

Carlos admitted he “jumped at the opportunity” to take on the challenge but had no idea what it would be like to train for the show until rehearsals began. “[Alexa] and I are both really hard workers, but nothing prepared us — or our bodies — for what we’ve been through,” he told PEOPLE.

Alexa was partnered with three-time Mirrorball champion Mark Ballas, while Carlos danced alongside one-time winner Witney Carson. As they began rehearsing, Alexa saw a competitive side of her husband she hadn’t seen before DWTS.

“He kept trying to compare our dances, and I had to keep reminding him that every teacher and every song is going to make the dances different,” she said.

They both performed well on the show, though Alexa was the last contestant eliminated from season 21 ahead of the finale. Carlos told PEOPLE he knew there was a shot he “might not make it to the finals” with his wife but was still gutted when it happened.

Before Alexa left, she and Carlos were placed in the bottom two couples, which meant one of them were surely going home. Carlos told PEOPLE at the time that he wasn’t expecting to be pitted against his wife and felt thrown off “when [they] were put in jeopardy next to each other.”

“It had been a tough week for us leading up to that night, so our emotions were running high already,” he said. “It just completely threw me that all of a sudden one of us would be going home.”

After her elimination, Carlos featured Alexa, as well as a few of his DWTS season 21 costars, in his and Carson’s freestyle dance to Missy Elliott’s “WTF (Where They From).” They received a perfect score for the performance, and Carlos finished the season in fourth place while Bindi Irwin won the Mirrorball trophy alongside now-judge Derek Hough.

They share three children

One year after they competed on DWTS, Alexa revealed that she and Carlos were expecting their first child, sharing an ultrasound photo on Instagram. Their first son, Ocean King, was born on Dec. 7, 2016.

“God called the dry ground ‘land’ and the water the ‘seas.’ And God saw that it was good,” she wrote in the caption of the Instagram announcement post. “That is why we went with Ocean. For us, it has a beautiful biblical meaning.”

After her son’s birth birth, Alexa told PEOPLE that becoming a new mom was “overwhelming,” but not in a negative way. “When I say overwhelming, it’s overwhelming all around — like, your heart is so full,” the star said. “You are in awe that you made this child. I look at him and I’m always like, ‘I can’t believe you’re mine — you’re so beautiful.’ It’s amazing.”

In July 2019, Alexa and Carlos welcome their second son, Kingston James. They became a family of five nearly three years later with the arrival of their first daughter, Rio, in May 2021. The actress announced in a post on Instagram that their third child was born a month earlier than her anticipated due date and required a NICU stay.

“Little Rio could not wait to come out and play with her brothers,” Alexa captioned the post. “Momma is feeling good and baby girl is kicking some serious booty in the NICU. Praying we can all be home together very soon! What a wave of emotions.”

Alex and Carlos announced they were expecting their fourth child in November 2023. However, they later shared the sad update that their daughter, Indy Rex, was stillborn in a joint Instagram statement in April 2024.

“There are never the right words to say when it comes to loss. After a beautiful and peaceful delivery our daughter ‘Indy’ was born at rest,” their statement began. “It has been a painful journey. But in pain we have found peace.”

“This little girl has already changed our lives in so many ways,” they added. “She was absolutely beautiful. And looked just like daddy. Dark hair and all. Grief has come to us in waves. Moments of feeling absolutely gutted…then moments of feeling blessed by just getting a moment with her.”

Through their mourning process, Alexa thanked their friends, fans and family for support. In a video on Instagram, she said the stillbirth was “the most traumatic thing that we’ve ever had to go through as a family” but that their daughter “transformed” their lives.

“Our family has never been stronger, my faith has never been stronger, my marriage has never been stronger,” she said. “[Indy’s] life was so purposeful in just that short little bit that we had with her. And while she may not have taken a breath here on earth, she did not go without purpose.”

Alexa and Carlos have starred in many Hallmark movies together 

In addition to sharing a life and family, the PenaVegas also share the screen professionally. Alexa and Carlos have appeared in many Hallmark movies together, including Enchanted Christmas, Love in the Limelight, Never Too Late to Celebrate and Love at Sea, which featured their eldest child, Ocean.

The pair told Royal Caribbean they were “so proud” of their son’s acting debut in the 2018 romantic cruise movie. “We never thought we would become ‘those’ parents who obsess over everything their kid does, but we are,” they said. “We can’t wait for everyone to see his debut.”

They wrote a book together 

Alex and Carlos joined forces to co-write their faith-based book, What If Love Is the Point? (released in 2022), sharing their personal stories relating to religion. They told told The War Cry in 2022 that the idea for the book came about when they pondered the question, “What’s the point?”

“We wrote down a lot of our own words of wisdom, and answering our own questions of, ‘What’s the point of life?’ ” Alexa explained.

“The purpose of the book is to show that we’ve just got to let go and let God. When you try and force things, it doesn’t work,” Carlos added.