Sarah Willis and Peter William Timmins were both going through a rough patch when they met in April 2016 at a fund-raiser for the now-closed Primrose Hill School in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Willis’s son was a student there. Timmins lived in Manhattan and was in town to support his close friend, Diana Cohen, a founder of the school.
Willis, a yoga instructor who taught privately in Rhinebeck, where she lived, and in New York, had recently come out of a long-term relationship, and was sharing custody of their son.
Timmins, a financial adviser in wealth management with the investment bank UBS in New York, had been a widower for more than two years and was raising the daughter he shared with his late wife. He and his daughter lived in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Finding love was far from both their minds.
“I was shellshocked by my relationship falling apart in a small town and keeping a low profile,” Willis said.
Timmins, still grieving, said he “was in survival mode.”
The two ended up sitting next to each other at the dinner. They chatted about raising young children and discovered they had both grown up in Manhattan — Timmins on the Upper East Side and Willis on the Upper West Side. They discovered several mutual friends. The conversation eventually turned to the death of Timmins’s wife, Amy Spratt.
“I remember being very matter of fact and telling Sarah that Amy had died of a brain aneurysm,” Timmins said. “We had so much in common by then, and I felt comfortable opening up.”
“I choked up instantly and imagined his young daughter growing up without a mother,” Willis said.
Despite the heavy conversation, they found themselves attracted to each other.
“Sarah has presence and posture,” Timmins said.
“Peter was charming and quintessential New York,” Willis added. “Although I was holding back tears at hearing his story, my heart simultaneously soared and I thought, ‘Uh-oh.’”
They exchanged numbers but didn’t connect again until more than a year later. By then, both were exploring dating and had profiles on Bumble. When Willis saw Timmins’s profile, she immediately reached out.
“I texted him, saying, ‘If you’re interested in me, please contact me directly,’” she said. It took him less than 10 minutes to ask her out. “I blurted out, ‘I think you’re wonderful’ because I thought she was,” Timmins said.
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They met a few weeks later, in August 2017, for dessert at Boulud Sud, a now-closed Mediterranean restaurant on the Upper West Side, where Willis’s parents lived and where she stayed when she was in the city. Although they don’t recall their conversation, they agreed the date went well enough to plan another.
They started meeting on weekends, with Willis usually coming to the city from Rhinebeck. On one occasion, when she cooked him dinner at her parents’ apartment, she showed him the backgammon set she had played with as a child. “We played for hours that night,” she said.
On another evening, after dining out, they went to Timmins’s apartment, where they shared their first kiss. “I pinched myself a few times in the cab ride across town later,” Willis said.
After a few weeks of dating, both were certain that they were in it for the long haul.
Willis, now 53, has a bachelor’s degree in performance studies from Northwestern University. Her son is now 14.
Timmins, 54, holds a bachelor’s degree in performing arts from Emerson College. His first marriage ended in divorce, and his second wife died in 2014. His daughter is now 12.
Their relationship deepened after they introduced their children. The four were a “happy family,” as both described it. Together they saw the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, went to pizza and burger spots around the city and spent weekends in Bridgehampton, N.Y., where Timmins’s family owns a home.
Over the next several years, they continued their long-distance relationship, alternating weekends between Rhinebeck and New York as they watched their children grow. It’s a living arrangement they plan to maintain.
Even though he was “madly in love” with Willis, Timmins said, he had “reservations” about remarrying. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to go that route a third time,” he said.
Willis was set on marriage: “I spent two years planting seeds, and finally, Peter told me that he would come around.”
On a Christmas morning beach walk in 2022 in Bridgehampton, he proposed.
The couple married Sept. 26 before 85 guests at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan. Dana M. Catanzaro, an acting justice of the Supreme Court of New York County and a close friend of the couple, officiated.
At the reception, Timmins and his daughter, who have Greek roots, led guests in the Kalamatianos, a group circle dance set to upbeat folk music. Timmins also surprised Willis when he sang “Sara Smile” by Daryl Hall and John Oates. The guests stood, made a circle around the couple and swayed.
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