The first time Lori Martin and Mark Dukes realized they’d found “the one” they saw fireworks. Literally.
Meet. Martin and Dukes met through a mutual friend. Neither was too keen on the set-up, but they agreed to chat on the phone. “The first few conversations were good,” Dukes says.
Yet, Martin dawdled when it came time to meet. She finally penciled him in for a Monday-night date a couple of weeks later. It was the first day of summer 2004. They met for dinner.
Thanks to a little fib about his late arrival, Dukes got to watch Martin freshen up in the parking lot. “I’m primping in the window of the car next to me,” Martin says, “You know, fluffing my hair, and he saw all that.”
Despite the blind nature of the date, Dukes recognized Martin when he saw her. A fan of girly-girls, Dukes watched her primp for a bit before calling her name. Martin turned to find Dukes standing there with a rose from his garden. “All I could think of was that he looked like a California boy, blond and tan and cute, standing there with a rose,” Martin says.
Match. Later, she told Dukes flat out, “I don’t want the date to be over yet.”
“We hung out until 4 or 5 in the morning,” Dukes explains. “We made out like high school kids.”
After a little reluctance partly fueled by embarrassment, Martin eventually agreed to a second date and then a third date on the Fourth of July that changed everything. They headed to LoDo for dinner and fireworks.
“I knew at that point,” Dukes says. “We were kissing over by Coors Field, by the stairs you go up, and I just knew it was her.”
“For me, it was a total gut feeling,” says Martin, agreeing about the power of the moment. “I never have felt like that before, ever.”
Marry. Dukes proposed to Martin during a trip to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in October 2004. A local florist blew plans for a showy scene at La Luz, a restaurant in a cave, so the waiters quickly threw together a romantic tableau for dessert.
“The waiter tells us to go to a different part of the cave for dessert,” Martin recalls. “I’m jabbering the whole time. I’m thinking I’m going to have chocolate. I love dessert, so I’m really excited.”
When the waiter pulled back panels of white lace, revealing a candlelit cove, “Lori started crying,” Dukes says.
Despite a job-related move to Las Vegas in February 2005, the couple kept plans for a hometown wedding in Colorado. Some 230 guests gathered on the patio at the new Belmar Center in Lakewood. As the sun set on a not-hot, not-cold November evening, Martin and Dukes exchanged vows. The bride expressed her joy of finding “the right person to be the right person with.”
The bridegroom, in turn, thanked her for opening “my eyes to what true happiness is.”
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