Bedford Dort initially agreed to a first date with Chelsie Dort purely “to be nice,” not intending for their relationship to become long-term. Chelsie met Bedford on Tinder.
She shared with People magazine that she was upfront about her life: “We scheduled our first date knowing that I would be bringing my 2-year-old son,” she explained. This honesty was rooted in past disappointment; she noted that previous partners, who had seemed fine with her having a son, “stopped talking to me when it came time to potentially meet him.”
Chelsie, a single mother hopeful about a new connection, had arranged to meet Bedford for breakfast at a local cafe that was conveniently closer to her parents’ house.
When they met at the cafe, the conversation flowed easily enough. However, what Chelsie was completely unaware of was that Bedford had confided in his circle of friends that his decision to go on the date was purely an act of courtesy—he was only meeting her to “be nice.”
“He didn’t tell me that he had felt that way until we were about to be engaged,” she recounted. “He said he had told his friends that he had set up a date with me and then realized I was a single mom and didn’t want to be rude, so he was taking me out still but had no plans on continuing the relationship.”
Despite what might have seemed like an unlikely pairing or a relationship starting on an unusual premise, their bond proved to be deeply genuine and rapidly accelerated. As the months passed, their connection intensified from casual dating to a serious, committed relationship, with Bedford and Chelsie ending up tying the knot only a few months after their first date.
“We did get married 8 months later. My husband took the pages out of a book, made his own pages with pictures of when we met and our story from the beginning,” Chelsie shared. “He read it to me, and my son, and the ring was in a hole in the back of the book.”
Chelsie and her husband, Bedford, can now laugh about the incident.
In an Instagram video, Chelsie, who uses social media to document her life with her family of seven, is shown hugging Bedford as he walks away from their door.
“Said he was going on one date with a single mom just to be nice and was never going to talk to her again,” she wrote over the clip.
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The video concluded, transitioning to a heartwarming picture of the now seven-member family. An accompanying caption, “12 years later,” highlights the photo, which features their five children: 11-year-old Ryker, 8-year-old Mya, 6-year-old Naomi, and 4-year-old twins Jax and Sloane.
“It’s true. @bedford_dort said he was only going on a date with me because he didn’t want to be rude to a single mom but wasn’t ready to have a kid. Which is fair. But thankfully, it didn’t work out that way,” she wrote in her caption.
Chelsie added that more importantly, her husband and her firstborn son, Ryker, “get along great” as they’ve successfully transitioned into a blended family.
“Certainly there have been some things we’ve needed to navigate emotionally as we’ve blended our family, but they’ve always been respectful and kind to each other as we’ve done it,” Chelsie remarked. “It hasn’t always been easy, but we love each other, and we’re dedicated to figuring it out.”
Reflecting on that initial date, the mother of five said her advice to her past self would be to embrace an open mind.
She said, “I would tell myself the same thing I told myself then, which was be open-minded, know that you deserve someone who loves you both, never settle, [and] love is a good thing.”
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