Teresa and Helen met at a message board for 'obsessed' Bad Girls fans. Neither woman had watched the series at the time of its original release; Helen had been living in Perth, Australia and Teresa in the state of Wisconsin in the United States, and neither had known of the other's existence. Furthermore, prior to joining the Bad Girls forums (Teresa in March and Helen in December of 2005) neither had ever considered signing up at a message board, but so strong had been Nikki and Helen's pull, and in particular their admiration for actress Simone Lahbib, that the two women took steps to become more and more involved in the N&H community. In fact, Teresa had been so inspired by Nikki and Helen's romance that she began to create music videos to showcase their journey into love and to show her appreciation of Simone Lahbib. She eventually developed a website (www.helenandnikki.com) where she would continue to share her passion and creative talents with others. But little did she know that one of her video tributes would do more than just delight other 'obsessed' Bad Girls fans; one of her videos would be the very thing that would bring her a love that would change the course of her life forever.

Helen tells their story best...

Our journey... "As fate would have it, I came across one of her music videos and one in particular drew me to e-mail her in reaction to a comment made by another Bad Girls fan. At first our e-mail conversations were very polite with the usual “what’s your favorite movie” and “what do you do for a living” but then it quickly grew into so much more. I think it was our mutual love of not only Bad Girls but Karen Carpenter and Olivia Newton-John that drew us to each other – we had so much in common. After a few weeks of e-mails I finally gathered up the courage to call Teresa, which was no easy task given that I had never called the United States before, I had to work out the time difference as well as having to overcome the American accent (Teresa would say it was harder for her to overcome my Australian accent). From the first “hello” I knew that my life had changed forever. It was both the scariest and easiest thing that I have ever done in my life. We talked for awhile and after we hung up you could not wipe the smile off my face and in my heart I knew that she was the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Who would have known that that one phone call would lead to me leaving my family, my job, my home and my country?"

"After months and months of long distance talking we finally planned to meet in Sydney Australia. The months of waiting and endless phone conversations finally came to an end when I saw her walk through the arrival gate – I was in love, she took my breath away. Our meeting in Sydney was the most amazing experience, it was exciting and comfortable, it was like we had known each other for years, yet there was still that feeling of meeting someone new. Our time together in Sydney was not long enough and the day to leave was very hard for us both. It was hard realizing that she was going back to her life in the US and I was going back to my life in Perth, not knowing when we were going to see each other again. It was on my plane ride home that I decided I wanted to go to the US and within hours of getting home I booked a flight. Teresa hadn’t even gotten off the plane yet and I rang her with the news."

"I flew to the US and spent a wonderful two weeks with Teresa and it was after that time that I knew that my life was here with her. Although it was hard to leave Australia I knew that I had no choice that being with Teresa was where I was meant to be. I flew back to Australia and made the arrangements to move to the US. At that time we had no idea how hard it was going to be getting employment, arranging visa’s, selling my home etc. It took us 12 months, a lot of money and a lot of stress to finally get it all sorted.

The only thing that kept us both going was the fact that we were in love and that we had each other. Nothing else mattered.

"After two years of first meeting we got married in London England on August 8th, 2008 (08.08.08). The reasons for choosing London was because of our “Bad Girls” connection and because it is legally recognized in the United Kingdom. We were hoping that with my English heritage I could get dual citizenship and then we would both be considered “legal” citizen’s but in the end we decided not to take any chances with my E3 visa status here in the United States. We also chose the date of 08.08.08 because it reads as the same date in both Australia and the US (In Australia you put the day first, not the month). The Wedding was amazing and we shared the day with incredible family and friends. We couldn’t have had a better day, it was perfect. The ceremony and the reception was a lot of fun and it was so wonderful being able to publically express our love for each other, and to really be thankful for coming into each other’s lives. It was fate that brought us into each others lives, but it will be our love, trust, respect and understanding that will keep us together forever."

We both couldn’t be happier and although we know it sounds cliché, we are Soul Mates.