February 1996: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos make their public debut as a couple

Consuelos and Ripa tried to keep their romance quiet in the beginning to avoid any professional conflicts. “People tend to think there’ll be problems when you’re dating your costar,” Consuelos later shared.

After a few months of dating, however, the couple finally made their public debut on the red carpet at the Soap Opera Digest Awards.

April 1996: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos briefly split up

Less than a year into their relationship, the couple briefly broke up. But as Ripa later pointed out, their separation didn’t last long. In fact, they got married the very next week.

“Right before we got married, we broke up,” she shared on an episode of the Comments by Celebs podcast. “We broke up and we got back together the day before we went off and eloped. Yeah, we eloped. We went to Vegas and got married.”

May 1, 1996: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos elope in Las Vegas

After they reconciled from their brief split, Consuelos proposed by asking Ripa: “Since we don’t have to work tomorrow, why don’t we fly to Vegas and get married?”

The pair jetted off to Las Vegas the next day and tied the knot at the Chapel of the Bells.

May 1996: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos go to Rome and Capri for their honeymoon

For their honeymoon, the newlyweds headed to Italy, where they took in the sights in Rome and Capri. As Consuelos later told Soap Opera Digest, “She deserved a beautiful place to go, and I couldn’t think of a more beautiful place than Italy.”

June 2, 1997: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos welcome their first child together

Just over a year after Ripa and Consuelos wed in Las Vegas, Ripa gave birth to their first child, Michael Joseph. The pair chose their All My Children costar Eva LaRue to be Michael’s godmother.

June 2000: Ripa and Consuelos’ characters tie the knot on All My Children

Ripa and Consuelos got to relive their big day in June 2000 when their characters Hayley and Mateo got married on All My Children.

“I think [Kelly] might get a little nostalgic or maybe regret the fact that she didn’t get to have that big wedding,” Consuelos later said of the couple’s elopement. “But I quickly point out to her that we had a number of weddings.”

February 2001: Kelly Ripa joins Live! With Regis and Kelly with the support of Mark Consuelos

In early 2001, Ripa embarked on a new career journey when she took over Kathie Lee Gifford’s co-hosting gig alongside Regis Philbin for the daytime talk show.

Years later, Ripa revealed that while she was initially hesitant to accept the job, Consuelos persuaded her.

“I wanted to raise my kids. I didn’t want to have them and never get to see them,” she said in 2021, adding that Consuelos “made sacrifices” so that Ripa could be more hands-on with their children’s day-to-day activities.

June 16, 2001: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos welcome daughter Lola to the family

Ripa and Consuelos welcomed their second child, daughter Lola Grace, to the family shortly after she joined Live!.

The couple had originally planned to name their new arrival Sophie, but on their ride to the hospital, the taxi driver was playing “Copacabana” by Barry Manilow.

“I heard that [lyric], when he said, ‘Her name was Lola,’ and I said to Mark, ‘Lola Consuelos would be a really cool name.’ And he said, ‘If she’s a girl, let’s name her Lola.’ And that was it,” Ripa later explained on her show.

February 24, 2003: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos welcome their third child

Ripa and Consuelos welcomed their son Joaquin Antonio on Feb. 24, 2003. They shared the happy news on Live! With Regis and Kelly, with Ripa calling her co-host Philbin from her hospital bed while he was taping the show.

2007: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos start their own production company

In 2007, the couple became business partners when they launched their production company Milojo, which is a combination of the first two letters of each of their children’s names.

January 2010: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos return to All My Children

In honor of the soap opera’s 40th anniversary, Ripa and Consuelos reprised their roles for a two-episode arc on All My Children.

April 2016: Mark Consuelos supports Kelly Ripa through Michael Strahan’s departure from Live!

In April 2016, Ripa’s co-host Michael Strahan announced his departure from the daytime talk show. At the time, a source told PEOPLE that Ripa felt “betrayed and so hurt” after she was blindsided by the news. However, as she later revealed on the cover of PEOPLE, Ripa’s husband helped her gain some perspective.

“Mark is such a smart guy and is always in the face of business very dispassionate,” she said of Consuelos. “He looks at it like a business decision, and he says to me, ‘There’s nobody better at this than you,’ spoken like a supportive spouse.”

April 2016: Kelly Ripa wears her wedding dress for her and Mark Consuelos’ 20th wedding anniversary

Shortly after Strahan’s announcement, the couple jetted off with their children to Turks and Caicos for a pre-planned 20th wedding anniversary celebration. As a source told PEOPLE at the time, the trip was just the distraction Ripa needed after the bombshell news.

“It’s fortuitous that she had this trip planned with her husband,” the insider revealed.

However, as Ripa revealed on Live! after returning home, there were plenty of high notes to celebrate from the trip despite its initial turbulence. She shared photos from the getaway with Strahan and the audience, including one sweet snap of Ripa posing with Consuelos in a long white dress — which she revealed was actually her wedding gown!

Ripa explained that while she married Consuelos 20 years ago, she’d actually owned the dress for 25 years.

“I didn’t buy it as a wedding dress. I just bought it because it was really pretty, and I wanted to buy something from the Barney’s Warehouse sale,” Ripa shared, before calling the purchase “the best $199 I ever spent in my life.”