This all started back in 2021 at the tail end of a global phenomenon. People were starting to emerge after doing a lot of thinking indoors. Jesse's record "Wimberley" came out around this time and found Zella on the road. This wasn’t the first time Zella had heard Jesse’s voice, there were songs that had been passed around by friends but as Zella puts it she didn’t know “if Jesse was dead or alive, his music is timeless and I never did any digging”, but it was “Wimberley” that brought him to her full attention and prompted her to reach out to make music together. They first met during ACL weekend in Austin when the two were gigging around the city. Jesse showed up to Zella’s show by himself in a long white duster and cowboy hat, the girls in the greenroom were very excited over this, but Z tried to play it cool. Both Zella and Jesse played it pretty “cool” that night with friendly conversation and keeping each other at a safe distance. Jesse, not really being a phone guy, managed to stay in touch when Z went back to California. He would text her every now and then, sprinkle in the occasional PHONE CALL (I know this is hard to believe for anyone that knows Jesse), but it was one phone call that changed everything when he called her up on a chilly November afternoon to invite her back to Texas to write music together in Wimberley. It was planned as a six day trip out at Latane’s ranch (jesses close friend) where they would spend the afternoons writing songs and recording ideas in a makeshift studio in the living room. Zella, not knowing Jesse that well, had one mutual friend that she called to check the temperature of the situation, and by that we mean she was calling Molly to get to the bottom of “Am I crazy to go spend six days out in the country with a guy I barely know???”. Molly sang Jesse’s praises calling him a gentle artist as well as a gentleman, she giggled and said that if anything were to happen it would definitely be Zella that would have to make the move. She was right. Zella likes to say they were “friends 4 out of the 6 days” when she finally held is hand on the couch as they were watching a Rodeo Championships on the television.

The two began their relationship as a long distance affair. Jesse came out to LA in February of 2022 for a roadtrip up the coast where the couple stayed a weekend in Big Sur playing guitar by the fireplace and falling asleep under the stars, onwards to Santa Cruz where they visited Zella’s uncle Hans where Jesse is pictured in the living room with his arms outstretched behind the vertebra of a blue whale to show the scale of Han’s most prized treasure in his house of wonders. They ended up back in Long Beach where Jesse met Zella’s mom, Ana, and step dad, Jim for the first time. It was like they had known each other for years, it didn’t take long before Jesse and Jim were on the couch drinking IPAs talking about how the Astros ‘may or may not have’ cheated their way into winning a World Series.

For all the beauty in California it was the little town in the Hill Country that the couple found their bliss together. Jesse bought a fixer upper in a neighborhood with river access to the most coveted swimming bank on the Blanco River back in 2018. The house, quirky in its ways, became the sanctuary for the couple to grow, learn, and discover their future. Zella, while keeping her apartment in LA for the first year of the relationship, began extending her trips each time she visited when eventually in the fall of 2022 (almost exactly a year of their first meeting) they packed up a moving van with Mitzy (Zella’s pup) in tow and officially moved in together (10/1/2022). For Zella, this leap of faith was one of the most incredible challenges to leave behind the family and friends that her whole life was intertwined and to embrace an entirely new world in pursuit of love. A challenge that has since proved to be the most rewarding and transformative gift.

In the spring of 2023 the couple decided to start a band, which was initially put on hold because they were too busy falling in love, with their friend Beau Bedford (who you will recognize at the ceremony as the officiant). The dream of creating together was realized when the concept of “Chaparelle” came to be. It has been a whirlwind of record making, playing shows all over the country, and building a team around the band to take it to great heights since the inception of the very first song “Bleeding Hearts” that they wrote in the living room of the cabin. Yes, there will actually be a documentary released next year that shows the journey of Chaparelle from the very first show all the way up to the band’s premiere at Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado in front of 10,000 people. Austin has really embraced Chaparelle as one of their own and is garnering a reputation as being “the next big breakout band”.

As Zella and Jesse were proving to each other that they could live together, work together, be creative, and even slip in the occasional house renovation without falling to pieces in the midst of all of it, Jesse started planning Zella’s ring with a jeweler in Long Beach, friend of the family, Morgan Noelle. Using his great grandmother’s ring adorned in single cut diamonds, Jesse and Morgan decided on a design that was a modern take on a family heirloom. Jesse was renovating the bathroom in their home and fitting in calls with Morgan over lunch breaks to discuss the ring. A man that was really doing it all. He plotted and planned with Zella’s mom and sister to pop the question in Long Beach so that all of her friends and family could be there to celebrate. A full circle moment he knew Zella would have wanted. On August 24th, 2024 Jesse rented a Duffy boat in the marina to propose on the water, the same waters Zella’s family grew up in. The Duffy boat was late, Jesse was stressed, he knew everyone would be waiting at the dock for their return so he took a short cut. A short cut that confused Zella and she started to question why he was trying to speed up their time. There may or may not have been a little argument about how to drive the boat, until Zella gave up and let Jesse lead. As they approached the dock Zella squinted towards the shoreline and asked Jesse “Is that your mom?” and when she turned around Jesse was on one knee. It was yes to forever.

Down the street from their home where the blue bonnets meet the river, Jesse and Zella will exchange vows in the little chapel on the hill on April 11,2026. Where their story began and is still unfolding, with their closest family and friends to bear witness and commune in the celebration of love, the couple can't wait to say I DO. We look forward to hosting all of you for our weekend to remember in the Hill Country of Central Texas, or how Jesse puts it, “The Topanga of Austin, the Eden of Texas”.