Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Closing arguments are set for Wednesday in the trial of Mexican soap opera actress Fernanda Romero on federal charges that her marriage was an illegal sham intended only to earn her a U.S. work permit. 

On Tuesday, Romero tearfully testified that she really loved Kent Ross, the pizza deliveryman she married five years ago. 

Their marriage was real, but it soon fell apart because of his drinking and her focus on a modeling and acting career, Romero told jurors. 

Romero is accused of paying Ross $5,000 to marry her on June 12, 2005, but the prosecutor alleged they never lived together as a couple. 

U.S. District Judge Manuel Real blocked defense lawyers from using evidence they said would show Romero was set up and turned in by a vengeful photographer angry that she rebuffed his romantic advances. 

The job of convincing jurors the marriage was real fell on Romero, a 28-year-old actress-singer-model who starred in Telemundo's "Wounded Soul" soap opera. The prosecutor suggested Romero was using her professional acting skills to sell her own fiction. 

Romero testified she married for love, not a green card. 

"To be in a loving relationship, forever and ever, like my parents," she testified. 

The couple didn't have a family wedding because he is Mormon and she is Catholic, she said. 

They kept separate Hollywood apartments because he couldn't break a lease and she traveled a lot, she said. 

The first months were "very loving, fun," she said. "We socialized together, passionate. It was the honeymoon stage." 
How was the first months of the relationship?
The first months were "very loving, fun,"