Can You Plan a Wedding in Two Weeks? This Couple Made it Happen at a Backyard Restaurant in Brooklyn

When people ask editorial consultant and former executive digital director of W magazine Sarah Leon how she and her now-husband, photographer Teddy Wolff, met, she replies: “Do you want the long version or the short version?” Leon’s short version is something straight out of a rom com. In one of those perfect meet-cute moments, Leon and Wolff were sat next to each other on a flight to Israel on Leon’s 25th birthday. “Even though we would both definitively say we are not the type of people to talk to strangers on planes, we struck up a conversation and immediately clicked,” Leon remembers. They were both on their way to experience Birthright, the sponsored ten-day trip to Israel for Jewish young adults, and ended up spending two weeks traveling together. But their lives back home were very different at that time: Leon was based in New York and Wolff lived in Washington D.C. So a long distance relationship began and, after about nine months of bus rides to and from each city, the couple wound up moving in and settling together in NYC.

Leon and Wolff were together for six-and-a-half years before they got married. They knew they wanted to tie the knot, but a full-fledged white wedding with all the trappings and long guest list was not in the cards for either of them. Knowing they wanted something small and easy, the pair were waiting until the right moment to plan their celebration. That moment happened to arrive amid a pandemic, a family loss, and just before the holidays in 2020. As Leon explains, “after my grandfather passed away in September, we felt a new sense of time moving quickly and the world changing.” They made their decision to wed on December 12, “on a cozy Saturday morning at home” in Chinatown. They started Googling wedding checklists and how to procure a marriage license. Later that day, Wolff went to photograph their close friend, head chef at Cosme Daniela Soto-Innes, during her second-to-last night in the kitchen. “Teddy conspired with the chefs to write ‘Let’s Get Married’ on two tortillas that accompanied the restaurant s famous duck carnitas, and surprised me with the message—and with dinner,” she remembers. “Neither of us have ever been fans of elaborate proposals, or proposals in general, but this surprise was just perfect.”

Next up, they FaceTimed their parents to tell them the great news. Leon and Wolff also told them that, not only were they getting married, but they were getting married in two weeks, the day after Christmas. The family, along with the bride and groom, all jumped into action. Following New York’s COVID-19 guidelines, the couple made a guest list of exactly 25 people, including themselves, their officiant, a close friend and writer named Zachary Mack (who also owns ABC Beer Co in New York, which provided some of the libations), and their photographer, also a friend, Eric Schleicher. “Every single person had a job to do,” Leon explains. “We hired a friend to bus the tables, another friend to be the photographer. We not only knew every single person on the premises that day, but they were all close friends that we wanted there, and could trust to be careful regarding COVID-19 precautions.” The entire wedding was planned in exactly two weeks, from engagement to ceremony. They chose the backyard patio of their friend James O’Brian’s restaurant and wine store Popina in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and asked Soto-Innes to be their ring bearer. Sisters Estefania and Valentina Brito, Cosme’s former sous chefs, would serve as the flower girls.