If anyone knows about life imitating art, it’s Lance Gross. Not only does he star opposite of  America Ferrera in Our Family Wedding, a romantic comedy about a black-Latino couple whose dadzilla fathers come between each other and their kids’ relationship, he’s planning a real-life wedding to his fiancé Eva Marcille (a.k.a.Eva Pigford).

“This movie was like a little test run, with all the stuff that could go wrong with a wedding,” says Gross, but he’s confident that getting hitched will go off without a hitch when he and the America’s Top Model winner-turned-actress marry this July in Los Angeles. “Eva’s dad likes me,” he laughs.  “I’ve been blessed to never have a situation in my real life where the parents didn’t like me.”

In the movie, his fiancée’s father, played by Carlos Mencia, is thrown for a loop when the guy she brings home isn’t Latino. His own dad, a wealthy radio star (Forest Whitaker) has a similar reaction to the union. But like his character Marcus, Gross doesn’t see anything unusual about cross-cultural romance.  “It’s a normal thing for an African-American to date a Latina woman. Eva’s dad is Puerto Rican. So it’s normal for me.”

Gross and Marcille met at an audition in June 2006. Neither got the job, and they parted ways.  “Nothing came of it,” he relates. “But about nine months later, she was cast in Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.  She ended up being my love interest in the show.”

He proposed to her during their yearly Christmas vacation in Big Bear, California, with their parents and siblings present.  “I proposed Christmas Eve,” he relates.  “We all opened one gift, and hers was a pillow.  It had a note on it, ‘Give this to the man you love.’  Luckily she didn’t give it to her father! Then I put the pillow on the ground and knelt on it.  It’ll be the pillow that the ring bearer carries in the wedding.”

Unfortunately, Marcille’s sister, the designated videographer, missed getting the moment on film.  “The camera cut off right when I got on my knees,” Gross sighs.

In Our Family Wedding, the engaged couple remind themselves “Their wedding, our marriage” when the paternal meddling gets overwhelming. Gross’ take on that? “I feel like if your parents are the ones footing the bill for the wedding they have a lot of say in it. Being that I’m paying for it, I feel like this is our marriage, our wedding.  And it’s easy because our parents trust us enough.”

With Our Family wedding opening March 12, the first of 26 new House of Payne episodes premiering March 10, a possible movie role with a little more edge than the “wholesome, all-American smiley guy” he usually plays, and his wedding, Gross has a busy year ahead. So it’s no surprise that he’s not eager to become a father just yet.  “I do want to have kids,” he assures, “but not any time soon.  I want to be able to just enjoy Eva and her enjoy me without the stress of a little toddler running around.”

-Gerri Miller