Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey celebrated his marriage to his partner Alexis Lewis in an intimate ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Saturday evening, less than three months after he announced their engagement in an Instagram post.
During the interfaith ceremony, a rabbi and a pastor blessed the couple beneath a huppah surrounded by photos of their grandparents and other relatives who have died. Their family-only reception, which honored both of their faiths — Mr. Booker is Christian, and Ms. Lewis is Jewish — was held at an undisclosed venue.
The couple was legally wed on Monday, Nov. 24, at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark, with their parents as witnesses and Judge Julien Xavier Neals of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey officiating. Afterward, they celebrated with Italian pastries and a vegan chocolate chip cookie dough cake — fitting for Mr. Booker’s vegan diet. (Ms. Lewis is not vegan.) The couple lives in Newark’s Central Ward.
Mr. Booker and Ms. Lewis kept their wedding plans under wraps out of privacy concerns.
Ms. Lewis, 38, a Washington native, is a director of investments at Brasa Capital Management, a real estate investment firm in Los Angeles. Like Mr. Booker, she has been committed to public service. Previously, she served as a business development manager of economic policy in the office of then-mayor Eric Garcetti, working on initiatives that encouraged commercial development in South Los Angeles and promoted diversity in the entertainment industry.
The couple’s wedding comes eight months after Mr. Booker, 56, delivered a 25-hour speech on the Senate floor opposing the Trump administration’s policies in March, setting a record. His stamina and tenacity drew renewed attention from Democrats, who have largely been sidelined in the Capitol since President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration in January. The moment reignited speculation about a potential presidential run; Mr. Booker last sought the nomination in 2020.
Mr. Booker, who was elected to the Newark City Council at 29 and served as the city’s mayor from 2006 to 2013, has been New Jersey’s senator since winning a special election in 2013, and is now serving in his second full term. Though he has largely kept his relationship with Ms. Lewis private, the couple shared details about their relationship and wedding exclusively with The New York Times.
The two were introduced in May 2024 by a mutual friend known for matchmaking. Ms. Lewis, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, met Mr. Booker on a blind date while visiting family in Washington.
Their first date lasted more than five hours, and, by the end of it, Mr. Booker asked Ms. Lewis if she was free the following night for another. She declined because she would be in Newark for a work trip. But, as it turned out, he would also be there in a matter of days. So he convinced her to push back her flight so he could take her out again.
“The second date was even more magical,” Mr. Booker wrote in an email. They had dinner at Mompou, a tapas restaurant in Newark, and caught the Broadway musical “Suffs” in New York. They ended the evening with a long walk through Newark, where Mr. Booker shared with her the places that had shaped his life, and the night ended with their first kiss outside the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
They love playing cards together, as well as cooking, singing loudly (and for Mr. Booker, “badly,” he said), and spending nights streaming their favorite shows. Most recently, that list has included “The Residence,” “The Great British Bake Off,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” and “Only Murders in the Building.”
The couple moved in together in April and fostered a dog, a shepherd mix named Cooke. They hope to welcome a permanent pup, or two, into the family. In past interviews, Mr. Booker has also repeatedly spoken about his desire to start a family and have children.
On Aug. 24, Mr. Booker proposed in Kauai, Hawaii, after native Hawaiian musicians played Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover,” a song Ms. Lewis has adored since childhood. When the performance ended, she hugged the singers and told them about her love for the song and how she had always wanted it to be played at her wedding.
Mr. Booker said, “Well, honey, this is the song that’s playing at your proposal” — and got down on one knee.
Another Mariah Carey song, “Emotions,” played while the couple stepped on glass on Saturday, participating in the Jewish wedding tradition. Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know” played for the recessional. For the cake, the bride; the bride’s mother, Leslie Garber Lewis; and the groom’s mother, Carolyn Booker, picked a flavor for each tier: Funfetti, almond with raspberry, and chocolate with chocolate ganache, respectively.
“My girlfriends and I say, ‘Change your flight, change your life,’ because it’s exactly what happened,” Ms. Lewis wrote in an email. “After so many years on my own, I’m not entirely sure I believed I would get married. But now, we’ve found each other at this stage of our lives, after epic personal journeys. And that deserves celebration.”
Ms. Lewis earned a bachelor’s degree at N.Y.U. and an M.B.A. at Cornell University. She worked at several corporate and marketing companies, including Creative Artists Agency and Hillstone Restaurant Group, before her role in the Los Angeles mayor’s office.
Ms. Lewis and Mr. Booker are both the youngest of three children. Mr. Booker grew up in Northern New Jersey and attended Stanford University, where he played varsity football and earned an undergraduate degree in political science and a master’s degree in sociology. He is also a graduate of Yale Law School and attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar
The longtime bachelor has shared that he did not always prioritize relationships, instead choosing to focus on his professional work. Mr. Booker’s last public relationship was with the actress Rosario Dawson, which ended in 2022 after more than two years of dating.
Now, he said, he is embracing this next chapter with his wife.
“Early in our relationship, I had a bittersweet moment of grief realizing my father would never get to meet the woman I’m marrying,” Mr. Booker said. “But Alexis is exactly the kind of woman my dad would have wanted for me. I often joke with her that she and my father have so much in common, and that he must be smiling — and laughing — in heaven.”
Sadiba Hasan reports on love and culture for the Styles section of The Times.
The post Cory Booker Weds Alexis Lewis in a Private Ceremony appeared first on New York Times.
