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DeVon Franklin and Maria Castillo Franklin are building a life together in their own time.
The newlyweds, who shared their wedding bliss with PEOPLE exclusively, married on Aug. 2 after an 8-month engagement. While speaking with PEOPLE about his upcoming Netflix film Ruth & Boaz, Franklin revealed that the couple hasn’t embarked on a honeymoon just yet.
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“We’ve both just been extremely busy with work and projects and then moving in,” Franklin, 47, shares. “We didn’t live together prior to being married, so we just moved in together and we’re still getting situated.”
The preacher and producer has had a busy summer, indeed. Outside of wedding planning, Franklin co-stars in Tyler Perry’s latest drama Divorced Sistas, which premiered on BET+ on June 10. He’s also in the midst of promoting Ruth & Boaz, which he’s producing alongside Perry.
When asked if his Christian faith influenced the decision to live with Castillo Franklin after their wedding, Franklin says that’s only part of the story.
“I guess maybe religion had something to do with it, but also it just had to do with taking the necessary steps of where we were. [Maria] was living with some roommates, and her whole life, she had never lived by herself,” he begins.
“And early on, when we started dating, that was something that was really important for her. So she ended up moving to a place by herself for the past year. It just made more sense to go and do it after the wedding. So it was as much spiritual as it was practical,” he continues.
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Franklin concludes by highlighting his future with Castillo Franklin, saying, “marriage isn’t the finish line, it’s the starting line.”
“I understand, especially religiously, what the practice is, but everyone has to figure out what works for them,” Franklin declares. “For us, it actually has been an amazing benefit because it gave us another dimension to get to know each other and has also given us something to look forward to. So those were the reasons that it worked out the way it did, and I’m glad that it worked out that way.”
The couple met in 2023 when Castillo’s then-business partner introduced them to one another. After a lovely brunch date, the Franklins have been locked in ever since, leading to a beautiful proposal in Maui, Hawaii, last year and their wedding ceremony in Los Angeles last month.
“To know I’ll be spending the rest of my life with this incredible man is a dream come true,” Castillo Franklin told PEOPLE following their engagement.
On the film side, Franklin is excited for the release of Ruth & Boaz, which is the first offering from his partnership with Netflix and Perry centered around faith-based programming.
The film stars Serayah and Tyler Lepley as the titular characters in the modern retelling of the Biblical romance. Rising hip-hop star Ruth Moably (Serayah) leaves the Atlanta music scene after a personal tragedy, opting for a fresh start in Tennessee, where she cares for her late boyfriend’s mother, Naomi (Phylicia Rashad). While there, she meets Boaz (Lepley), who will come to surprise her as time passes.
Ruth & Boaz arrives on Netflix on Sept. 26.
