Rebecca Ann Woodfork and Jennifer Kathryn Ziegler had been talking on the phone daily for about six weeks when Ms. Ziegler, who lived in New York City, suggested she visit Ms. Woodfork in Boston for her 40th birthday.

Ms. Ziegler booked an Airbnb apartment for a weekend in March 2021. But Ms. Woodfork had a feeling she would be visiting longer.

“She told me, ‘I’d pack enough for four weeks,’” Ms. Ziegler said.

Not long before that, Ms. Woodfork’s therapist had told her to write down the most important qualities she wanted in a wife. Generosity and kindness topped the list, as did a pride and confidence in being gay. After she and Ms. Ziegler began talking, Ms. Woodfork quickly realized that Ms. Ziegler, with whom she had matched on Tinder in February 2021, was “everything I ever wanted,” she said.

When they met in person for the first time on March 20, Ms. Woodfork realized the depths of her feelings immediately. “I could have married her right there,” she said.

They ordered sushi and spent the evening in conversation. “We barely ate anything,” Ms. Ziegler said. “She was really easy to talk to. She was interesting, funny, super positive.”

At the time, Ms. Woodfork, 42, was working as the head of the hair department on the set of “The Tender Bar,” a film directed by George Clooney. She had moved to Boston from Swampscott, Mass., after high school to study at the Learning Institute of Beauty Sciences, which is now closed. In recent years, she has worked on hair for films like “Shooting Stars,” “Knives Out” and “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

Ms. Ziegler, 50, grew up in Tallmadge, Ohio, and is a technology sales manager for IBM. She has a bachelor’s degree in business from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, and an M.B.A. from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York.

In the end, Ms. Woodfork’s prediction came true: Once her Airbnb ended, Ms. Ziegler remained in Boston — in Ms. Wordfork’s apartment to be exact — for a month.

The pandemic had made both women realize they were comfortable by themselves, but wanted to find their person. “Everybody’s baking bread together, and I was baking alone,” Ms. Woodfork said.

Ms. Ziegler had decided to use the slowdown brought on by the pandemic to put more effort into dating. “A lesbian isn’t just going to fall from the sky,” she said.

They spent their month in Boston cultivating a bond during evenings and weekends together. Ms. Woodfork was impressed by how wholeheartedly Ms. Ziegler supported her through a personal struggle.

In May 2020, the stitches Ms. Woodfork had from a previous surgery started popping out. She had a cyst removed from her cheek in 2018. It turned out she was allergic to the sutures.

“It looked like I had skinned my face,” Ms. Woodfork said. When she met Ms. Ziegler, Ms. Woodfork was still physically and mentally in the healing process. She said that working in a beauty-focused industry made it difficult for her to accept the scar that ran down part of her face, and she was working through insecurities around her appearance. She worried about how Ms. Ziegler would respond, but it turned out, she need not have.

“I was so surprised that someone was so prepared to love me so much during that process,” she said.

In May 2021, Ms. Woodfork and Ms. Ziegler went on vacation for 10 days in St. Lucia. “We really just enjoyed listening to Ella Fitzgerald and being in the pool all day and cooking together,” Ms. Woodfork said. “That’s where we fell in love.”

After the trip, Ms. Woodfork flew to New York with Ms. Ziegler. The couple, who are mixed race, were pleasantly surprised by the reactions they received in the streets of the city. “People would come up to us to say, ‘You guys are beautiful,’” Ms. Woodfork said. “I felt like we were leading by example.”

In New York, she prepared to leave for Atlanta for at least six months to work on a film. For nearly a decade, Ms. Woodfork had been methodically building her career in film and TV, jumping from one set and one city to another, where she would work 80 to 90 hours per week.

“Finding time for another person wasn’t something I even thought about,” she said.

But the trip to St. Lucia — her first vacation in years — made her realize that she needed a break from her profession so she could focus on her personal life. She backed out of the job, and spent the summer with Ms. Ziegler in Provincetown, Mass. “Early in the relationship you need water and sunlight,” she said. “It was the best decision I made. I don’t know if we would be here otherwise.”

In early fall 2022, Ms. Woodfork and Ms. Ziegler decided they wanted to get married, so they designed their engagement rings: platinum with diamonds. Afterward, Ms. Woodfork took the rings and said to Ms. Ziegler, “You won’t know when or how, but we’ll get engaged.”

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On Dec. 11, Ms. Woodfork brought Ms. Ziegler to Central Park.

As they walked toward Bethesda Fountain, Ms. Ziegler heard “The Good Life” by Robin Thicke, one of the songs Ms. Woodfork had shared with her early on in their relationship, when they were getting to know each other. She saw dozens of people looking at something and wondered what was happening. Ms. Woodfork pushed her along.

Then, Ms. Ziegler said, “I saw an arch of flowers, petals on the floor.” An event-planning team had arranged easels holding photos of the couple, as well as posters with lines from a poem Ms. Woodfork had written. “I started crying as I was seeing all the pictures and reading everything,” Ms. Ziegler said. “When we got through to the end, she got on one knee and proposed.”

Afterward, they celebrated with brunch at Robert, a restaurant in the Museum of Arts and Design on Columbus Circle that looks out onto New York City.

“She loves views and skylines,” Ms. Woodfork said. “I was an ostrich before, looking down and getting through life. Views are something Jen brought back for me.”

Ms. Ziegler and Ms. Woodfork, who now live in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, were legally married June 15 by Madeline Plasencia, a clerical associate at the New York City Clerk’s Office. One month later, on July 15, they had a ceremony led by Libby Clark, Ms. Ziegler’s best friend, and a celebration for 120 guests at the Lake Forest Country Club in Hudson, Ohio, not far from where Ms. Ziegler grew up. Ms. Woodfork first visited Ohio some years earlier, when she worked on “Judas and the Black Messiah.” She fell in love with it.

Celebrating at the country club “was almost like being in someone’s house,” Ms. Woodfork said. “A very large, beautiful house.”

The homey atmosphere was underscored by an eight-foot-long table that held 2,500 sweet treats prepared by Ms. Ziegler’s family and friends. Ms. Ziegler’s mother, Santina Pugliese Ziegler, who was born in the Calabria region of Italy, baked 1,500 of them over the course of three months, a combination of pizzelle, brownies, cannoli, amaretti and more. The brides made little bags filled with the desserts for guests to take home.

Ms. Ziegler wore a dress with an open back and a train, along with a veil with tiny pearls embroidered on it, and Ms. Woodfork wore a jumpsuit with two long tails in the back. “We felt beautiful,” Ms. Ziegler said.

Ms. Woodfork described the wedding as a “melting pot.” “We had my friends who are Black, her Italian family, our friends who are gay,” she said.

Ms. Woodfork and Ms. Ziegler spent months working with an instructor on their choreographed first dance, which was a waltz with box steps, spins, dips and even a lift mixed in, set to the song “First Time” by Teeks. Once guests hit the dance floor, they partied to a smorgasbord of music genres that included songs from Prince, Sister Sledge, Beyoncé, TLC, Phil Collins and Stevie Wonder. “It was like an ’80s or ’90s prom,” Ms. Woodfork said.

On This Day

When July 15, 2023

Where Lake Forest Country Club, Hudson, Ohio

V.I.P. Clients Ms. Woodfork styled both Ms. Ziegler’s and Ms. Ziegler’s mother’s hair, an uncommon practice for a bride at her own wedding. Ms. Woodfork’s friend Ashunta Sheriff, a professional makeup artist, did Ms. Woodfork’s and Ms. Ziegler’s makeup. “I felt like I should be on the cover of Essence,” Ms. Woodfork said. “She really worked her magic.”

Tarantella All the guests participated in an Italian folk dance called tarantella, where “people form a big circle, with lots of clapping and leg kicks,” Ms. Ziegler said. “Even if you don’t know it, everyone joins in and gets into it.” At one point, Ms. Woodfork danced in the center of the circle. “She was a star,” Ms. Ziegler said.

Something Blue Ms. Woodfork’s maid-of-honor, Tia Gonzales, gifted the couple cloth napkins with the date of the wedding and their names embroidered on top. Unbeknown to Ms. Gonzales, the napkins had a scalloped-edge trim that looked exactly like the trim on the napkins that Ms. Ziegler’s parents received at their wedding in 1966. “It was wild,” Ms. Ziegler said.