I Do!: Jessica Nieders and LI Ducks pitching coach Bobby Blevins

To Jessica Nieders, 38, online dating was downright “scary.” Only when her colleague urged her did she give the dating app Hinge a shot. That was in May 2022. Nearly a year later, the special education teacher matched with Bobby Blevins, 40, a former professional baseball player drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2007.

After some playful messaging, the pair began chatting via FaceTime, phone calls and texts every morning and night. “We just clicked,” said Blevins, formerly of upstate Ossining. “We looked forward to talking every day.”

One month later, the couple met for their first date. “I drove up to Ossining from Queens, and when I got out of my car, he kissed me [on the lips],” Nieders recalled. “I said, ‘Wow,’ and he gave me a goody box of all my favorite snacks and candies. I just loved that.”

The pair drove to a restaurant, where they “talked for hours.” “We felt like old friends already,” Nieders said.

“From the beginning, he told me he was not playing games and that he wanted a family,” said Nieders. “Within six months, I knew he was the one.”

On Christmas Eve 2023, Blevins, who gathered with Nieders and about 30 members of her family, gifted her a framed photo of the pair with an inscription that read, “Jessica, You + me = Love; let’s make it forever. Our forever starts now. Will you marry me?”

“I said, ‘yes’ and I cried and hugged him,” she recalled, amid applause and whoops in the room. And with that Blevins removed an engagement ring tucked in his sock and put it on her finger.

The couple exchanged vows and celebrated with a reception at The Piermont in Babylon on Feb. 15 surrounded by 150 guests and a bridal party of 15 close friends and family members.

As the couple settles into married life in Middle Village, Queens, Blevins, now a pitching coach with the Long Island Ducks, reflected on his relationship with his wife.

“Jessica is now part of my story,” he said. “She is everything to me and my life moving forward.”

Nominate a couple who has gotten married in the past 12 months. Email your love story, in 250 words or less, to lilife@newsday.com, subject line I Do!