Â¡Viva el Amor!

Thursday September 19, 2002 01:00 PM EDT

On Sept. 1, Mother Nature didn't seem like much of a Scooby-Doo fan. With Hurricane Hernan churning 300 miles from the site of their wedding at Mexico's El Careyes resort, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr., who played Scooby sleuths Daphne and Fred this summer, had to move their nuptials inside. Then, the next day, natural forces struck again: A 4.6 earthquake rocked the area just as guests were heading home. "Earthquake? Hurricane? Hey, I think it's a great way to start," says talent manager Ron DiBlasio, a longtime friend of the Prinze family's. "All of those bigger-than-life natural events can only bode well for the marriage."

Besides, who needs terra firma when you've got newly wedded bliss? "We are each other's best friend,"says Gellar, 25, the star of UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "He is my first love." For his part, Prinze, 26, who is fond of calling his bride "my girl," seemed love-struck on their big day. "Sarah glowed, and I've never seen Freddie happier," says guest Marisa McGrath, 31, a publicist. Adds Prinze's mom, Kathy, 52: "They're quite the couple."

They certainly put on quite the party, treating the 60 or so guests -- including Shannen Doherty, That '70s Show's Wilmer Valderrama and The West Wing's Dulé Hill -- to four days of relaxation at the resort. But the official wedding festivities didn't kick off until Aug. 31, when the couple held a rehearsal dinner featuring fish tacos, enchiladas and free-flowing Corona beer. Next up: a raucous pool party that lasted until 3 a.m.

That's way past the usual bedtime for Gellar and Prinze, who say they prefer quiet evenings at the L.A. home they share with dogs Cody, Tyson and Thor. "We relax by taking drives, doing errands, walking the dogs," says Prinze. They also "love trying out new restaurants," he adds -- including the sushi place where they first fell for each other, three years after meeting on the set of 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer. "We had made plans for dinner with a mutual friend and the person canceled," says Gellar. "We decided to have dinner anyway and never looked back."