A fan of Greek mythology might say that Zeus had a hand in the future of Nicholas Scarvelis, a Greek American Olympian shot putter. It was a future where he simultaneously stepped away from his first love of competing professionally to a new kind of love when he connected with Noelle Zappia on a dating app in October 2019.
“I remember both of us saying to the other, ‘Hey, you seem interesting, let’s meet in person,’” Ms. Zappia said. “Soon after, we met at San Diego’s Balboa Park and just sat and talked. All the things that I wanted to talk about, Nick wanted to talk about.”
Within months, they became exclusive. “There was such a sense of patience and clarity when we met,” Ms. Zappia said. But their time together was limited because Mr. Scarvelis was still competing and training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after representing Greece at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
In July 2020, during the height of Covid pandemic, Mr. Scarvelis moved from San Diego to Mesa, Ariz., to train. He and Ms. Zappia would regularly meet up a little more than halfway in Dateland, Ariz.
“This oasis of Medjool date palms in the middle of the desert made our meeting spot so endearing,” Mr. Scarvelis said. “We never spent too much time there — just enough to share a date shake and fill up on gas, but it was our tiny paradise where we could catch moments with one another before returning to our separate lives.”
In August 2021, Mr. Scarvelis moved back to San Diego, and a month later, the couple headed to Samos, Greece, an island in the eastern Aegean where his mother, Alexandra Scarvelis, currently resides several months out of the year.
During that trip, Mr. Scarvelis, 31, and Ms. Zappia, 32, secretly contemplated a wedding there. However, this time, it wasn’t Zeus but Mr. Scarvelis’s mother who had a hand in a future proposal. “She took us to one of the local chapels and hinted, ‘This could be a beautiful place to get married,’” Ms. Zappia said.
After spending months training and not qualifying for Tokyo, Mr. Scarvelis decided to retire from competitive sports in June 2022. “When I reached the end of my training season in 2022 and I decided to retire once and for all, that’s when we sat down and made a timeline of moving in together and making that next big step,” he said. “Ending my career when I did and seeing how my life was unfolding, everything felt right.”
Ms. Zappia said she understood early on that she needed to respect his relationship with the sport and allow him time to transition. “As the partner of an athlete, you need to be just as committed as they are,” she said. “And even though I’m not an athlete, I come from a very creative family and understand that being committed to a passion requires space.”
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Mr. Scarvelis, who graduated from U.C.L.A. with a bachelor’s degree in English, is a track and field coach specializing in throwing events for the University of California San Diego. Ms. Zappia, who graduated from San Francisco State University with a bachelor’s degree in history, is a senior systems analyst for the nonprofit Accessity, which provides capital to small business owners facing barriers.
On May 28, 2023, next to a reflective pool filled with lily pads at El Encanto, a hotel in Santa Barbara, Calif., Mr. Scarvelis proposed to Ms. Zappia. That summer, while vacationing on Samos, they started planning for their island wedding.
On Sept. 4, 2024, Mr. Scarvelis and Ms. Zappia greeted 60 friends and family members who made the trip to Samos. Doryssa Seaside Resort was the home base for the wedding festivities. That evening they hosted a rehearsal dinner at Blue Chairs in Vourliotis on the island’s northern, more rugged part. “We wanted our guests to see both sides of Samos, not just the beautiful beaches,” Ms. Zappia said. Wedding favors passed out that evening included Muscat wine from grapes grown there. “Nick picked the grapes the summer before,” she said.
Because Mr. Scarvelis holds dual citizenship, the couple were able to legally marry in Greece on Sept. 5 at the Holy Church of St. John Chrysostom Smyrna, where the Rev. Ioannis Vouros performed a Greek Orthodox ceremony at sunset. The wedding party included the bride’s sister, Angela Zappia, and Mr. Scarvelis’s sister, Stamatia Scarvelis, who represented Greece in Tokyo and Paris in the Olympic hammer throw. Guests returned to the resort’s Asteria restaurant, where many generations of family and friends celebrated until 4 a.m., when they all jumped in the ocean before heading to bed.
The couple will honeymoon in England. “We wanted something opposite of the trips we usually take where we enjoy the beaches of places like Greece and Sicily,” Ms. Zappia said. “We’re big lovers of English literature and history. We both have this romantic notion of the English countryside.”
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