When Hadley Lisle Mendelsohn’s rented red Mustang pulled up in the driveway of Charles Alfred Lewis III’s Naples, Fla., family home in May 2020, it could have been the start of a horror movie, at least in Ms. Mendelsohn’s macabre and creative mind.
After all, the duo had never even met in person before Ms. Mendelsohn, then 26, drove three hours solo across the state from a friend’s home in Vero Beach, Fla., to see the man she had been chatting with on Hinge for two months.
Her friends worried, half jokingly via texts, that Mr. Lewis, then 32, might be a serial killer. While he hoped she wouldn’t steal anything from the house while his parents were away, a fear amplified by the large suitcase Ms. Mendelsohn brought with her on the trek.
All those concerns, of course, proved unfounded.
Over the next 48 hours, the Brooklyn residents — both of whom decamped to Florida during the pandemic’s early weeks — swam in the Lewis family’s lanai pool, cooked steaks, and talked for hours on end. By the end of the first night, they had their first kiss following Ms. Mendelsohn’s wine-fueled performance of the entire first act of “Les Misérables.”
By Sunday evening, they were smitten enough to plan another visit for the following weekend.
“I didn’t know someone as good as him could be real, or that someone as real as him could also be good,” Ms. Mendelsohn wrote in a journal after their second weekend together. “I’m afraid to say ‘we’ for a ‘we’ that’s too new, but maybe soon I’ll get to say it.”
Ms. Mendelsohn is a writer for the editorial/marketing team of Hims & Hers, a digital health platform, and a host of Hearst’s former true crime podcast Dark House.
A few weeks after their initial meetings, Ms. Mendelsohn and Mr. Lewis, the senior director of revenue operations at the New York-based news media company Semafor, returned to New York and continued seeing each other. They bonded over a shared love of storytelling and coffee, while also introducing each other to their more disparate interests. Mr. Lewis enjoys basketball and playing guitar; Ms. Mendelsohn’s idea of fun is to explore a cemetery or research an 1800s murder.
That fall, they began dating officially. They spent the rest of the pandemic side by side, meeting each other’s families and exchanging “I love yous” on getaways to upstate New York. In August 2024, Mr. Lewis proposed to Ms. Mendelsohn during one such getaway with a silk-engraved gold ring with several diamonds that the duo had designed together.
“There was a lot of uncertainty in the world when we met, and with that, many paths for us, as individuals to follow,” Mr. Lewis said in his vows during the couple’s Sept. 6 wedding at Straus Home Ranch in Marshall, Calif. “But we came together time and time again — we chose each other.”
Mr. Lewis, who grew up in Westbrook, Conn., graduated from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s degree in marketing. He worked at the marketing agency Digitas and the media company Vice before joining Semafor in 2023.
Ms. Mendelsohn spent her childhood in San Francisco, earning a bachelor’s degree in narrative studies from the University of Southern California. After graduation, she moved to New York and wrote articles for several fashion and lifestyle-focused publications, including Hearst’s House Beautiful. She and her colleague Alyssa Fiorentino started Dark House in 2021, quickly earning an audience for their eerie and entertaining dives into houses believed to be haunted. Among them, Grey Gardens, an estate in East Hampton, N.Y., where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and first cousin had lived, and the Rhode Island mansion now owned by Taylor Swift.
The podcast stopped production in 2024, but Ms. Mendelsohn’s passion for the spooky and beautiful (and the groom’s loving tolerance for it) only grew. For her bachelorette party in New Orleans in May, she wrote a self-described “deranged” murder mystery for attendees featuring pirates and vampires. While planning the wedding, she said she focused on “creating an ambience that felt magical and a little bit spooky, with a sense of humor.”
That distinct vibe was infused in nearly every aspect of the couple’s three-day wedding weekend, starting with the outfits. For the Friday night welcome party at Olema House, a boutique hotel on the outskirts of the Point Reyes National Seashore. Ms. Mendelsohn said she urged guests to wear “Gothic-lite, i.e. dressy casual but with a sort of vampiric Dorothy vibe.” She wore a black lace Gabriela Hearst dress chosen for its spider web-like look.
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On the wedding day, guests who arrived early to the Straus Home Ranch, a working farm built in 1864 and said to be haunted, enjoyed walking through a blackberry maze and listening to the accordionist booked as a surprise from Ms. Mendelsohn’s mother for the bride. Welcome drinks with names like “The Witching Hour” and “Nocturnally Yours” were served from cauldron-like punch bowls filled with dry ice.
At 4:30 p.m., Ms. Mendelsohn walked down the aisle alongside her parents, wearing a blush-colored Wiederhoeft top and skirt, with an Erdem veil and a tennis bracelet originally belonging to her paternal grandmother. Mr. Lewis, wearing a black double-breasted Paul Smith tuxedo, waited at the altar alongside the bride’s brother-in-law, Sam Ubl, their officiant, who was ordained by the American Marriage Ministries for the occasion.
In his remarks, Mr. Ubl spoke of the “leap of faith and geographical coincidence” that was the couple’s first meeting and complimented their mutual enjoyment of each other’s quirkier habits .
One of Ms. Mendelsohn’s childhood friends then recited moody lyrics from Gus Dapperton’s song “Sunrise (feat. Ocean Vuong),” before the bride and groom exchanged vows. An emotional Ms. Mendelsohn spoke of her love for Mr. Lewis’s “on-the-fly haikus” and “big-toed basketball hooves.” Mr. Lewis promised to get Ms. Mendelsohn a Boxer dog and “do karaoke by ourselves at home.”
The couple had their first married kiss in front of cheering guests, swinging gifted handkerchiefs embroidered with the portmanteau “Chadley.” The celebrations continued with a cocktail hour featuring platters of oysters and a mariachi band; pairs of customized maracas were available as wedding favors.
For dinner, guests headed inside the barn to take seats at tables named in honor of relatives and pets of Mr. Lewis and Ms. Mendelsohn who had died. Family-style courses of clams linguine and roast chicken were served on menus featuring the quote “wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” from the 2015 horror film “The Witch.”
Several of the couple’s close family members gave well-received speeches, including Ms. Mendelsohn’s older sister, Mallory, who spoke of her new brother-in-law’s “attentive and anchoring spirit” and her sibling’s lifetime love of “nightmare-fuel” narratives.
“Here’s to Chad and to Hadley, who wanted a ghost story or a true crime story, but ended up with a love story instead,” she said in her toast.
After dinner, the duo and their guests danced to Abba and Chappell Roan (plus some songs from the musical “Les Misérables”) under a full moon. Ms. Mendelsohn changed into a vintage Saks Potts dress and Simone Rocha coat before the group decamped to the nearby Old Western Saloon for a raucous after-party and accompanying taco truck.
The following evening, the bride and groom departed for a weeklong honeymoon in Fiji, where Ms. Mendelsohn said they relaxed by the water while “bats soared over our heads.” Upon their return, the bride got to work making a scrapbook of their wedding keepsakes, including pressed flowers and guests’ crayon drawings on the paper tablecloths used for dinner.
Ms. Mendelsohn was disappointed not to be able to fit their decorative chamberstick candle holders into the book. But, she said, “We can keep them for future dinner parties and murder mystery parties.”
On This Day
When Sept. 6, 2025
Where Straus Home Ranch, Marshall, Calif.
Thrifted Decor Ms. Mendelssohn’s mother, Pam, sourced all the eclectic vases for the weekend’s florals from flea markets, estate sales, antique shops, and eBay.
Tetris Champions During his opening remarks, the officiant, Mr. Ubl, revealed that he once held the title of Brooklyn’s top-ranked Tetris player — only to be ousted by Ms. Mendelsohn, his sister-in-law. “Having this skill in common with her made me the obvious choice to perform a pivotal role in the most important event of her life,” he said, jokingly.
Friday Night Karaoke After the welcome barbecue on Friday night, the couple and their guests performed spontaneous karaoke via some unusual song choices. “I didn’t have singing “Creep” in front of a live audience on my Bingo card, but that was pretty fun,” Ms. Mendelsohn said, referring to the Radiohead song.
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