Hitched

Nicole and Jess Abell
MAY 17, 2003

Whenever a couple seals the deal, it's tempting to suppose we're just watching Fate make her daily rounds. But Nicole DiPetra and Jess Abell aren't just well-matched: They're so much alike, it's no wonder they're so much in love.

Both were raised by single dads. Both of their mothers fled the domesticity of married life for the Alaskan wilderness. Both were born under the sign of Libra (their October birthdays are two years apart). Jess once was engaged to a woman with a young child, and Nicole's raising a 6-year-old girl. They both have sandy blond hair. Freaky!

The paths of these young lovers first crossed in the spring of '02. A golf-course snack-bar attendant, Nicole, then 25, had caught the eye of big-rig salesman Jess, 23, while he was on a beer break on the greens. With a little extra help from a co-worker (her mom, who returned from the wilds a few years ago), Nicole's phone number "mysteriously" ended up in her future hubby's hands. On that day Jess went home with more than just sore feet and a bad golf score.

A scant week later, Jess called Nicole and the two agreed to go out on a date. And oh, what a date it was. Lasting nine hours and
covering such tourist hotspots as the Rose Festival and the Rose Garden, the date was quite the fact-finding mission. Better yet,
the two discovered they shared more than just a love of golf.

By the time the pair made their way to Northwest 23rd Avenue, Jess felt comfortable enough to make his move. Nicole remembers the exact time the magic moment happened.

"We were walking down [the street], and he just reached over and grabbed my hand," Nicole recalls. At the end of the night, despite the hand-holding, Nicole wasn't expecting him to plant her with a kiss. But he surprised her.

The following day the smitten Nicole called her mother with a revelation: "I told her, 'This is the man I'm going to marry.'"

Now, it wasn't like she was looking for a new life partner. A part-time dental assistant, she had recently finished up with her first marriage (and subsequent nasty divorce). Life with her daughter, Kenedi, was just fine, thank you very much.

That is, until Jess came along.

Jess agrees. He says he knew Nicole was his "soul mate" from the very first time he held her hand. On the other hand, getting the women in Nicole's life to agree with him was challenging--especially 6-year-old Kenedi.

At no time was this more evident than when the couple tried to plan a "sleepover."

According to Jess, Kenedi said, "Why don't you just leave and come back in the morning?" For Kenedi's sake, Jess made the long haul from Vancouver back to his home in Beaverton for the next two months. Finally, though, the couple was able to convince Kenedi to let Jess stay over. Once summer hit they were all living together, and in the fall, the couple even began to look at engagement rings. Nicole
didn't suspect, though, that Jess had started making secret payments on her favorite.

Nicole knew something was up just a few days before Christmas. That's when the couple went out for dinner. Jess was acting strange--stumbling over words, acting nervous, smiling for no reason. "I kept telling him to relax," Nicole says. After dinner, Jess reached into his pocket and revealed the reason for his behavior.

He wanted Nicole to marry him. She said yes.

The couple set the date of their nuptials for May 17, 2003--one year to the day after Jess' and Nicole's life histories first crossed paths and Fate collided with Luck.

While Jess' golf game still has plenty of room for improvement, he definitely scored a hole in one that day.

WWeek 2015