After a 12-Year Intermission, They Met at the Altar
Eli Phillip Wasserman thought he was over Jeffrey Michael Eisner. But in April 2025, he came across a love letter he had written to Eisner nearly 12 years earlier, saved on his computer. Titled, “This is Not a Love Letter, This is a Letter About Your Hoodie,” it recounted a chilly night in New York when Eisner had lent Wasserman his hooded sweatshirt to keep him warm.
“I held it up to my nose, and the scent of you still lingered on every fiber of the fabric,” Wasserman wrote in the one-and-a-half-page note.
He had mailed the letter to Eisner in 2013, shortly after their brief relationship had ended. He had hoped to woo Eisner back but never received a response.
“As soon as I recognized the letter, I started to cry,” Wasserman said. “I had forgotten what it felt like to be in love. To be close to someone.”
Their story began in September 2013, when they matched on OkCupid.
On their first date, a few days later, dinner at Carnegie Deli in Midtown Manhattan, their attraction was immediate. “Eli’s style, soft voice and his dapper, handsome looks,” Eisner said. “It all struck me as someone whose company was special to be in.”
“It took me about a minute and 30 seconds to realize I was in love with him,” Wasserman said. “I had to remind myself to breathe because I was holding my breath.”
Over matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwiches, they had what they described as a “fantastic” conversation about their backgrounds and love for Jewish food. After their meal, Wasserman took Eisner to the Empire State Building, and on the observation deck, with the cityscape twinkling behind them, they kissed. “It felt like fireworks may have gone off in the sky,” Eisner said of the moment.
At the time, Wasserman was renting a studio apartment in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, and his career as a fashion stylist was taking off. Eisner lived in Astoria and worked as a video producer for a public relations firm representing personal care brands.
Their courtship lasted only a few weeks, during which Wasserman spent several nights in Eisner’s apartment, and they texted and spoke constantly.
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Still, Eisner had reservations about getting serious, partly because he was “in a stale career” and unhappy. “When we met, Eli was a stylist working with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry,” he said. “He was thriving in his career, and I wasn’t.” He was also mindful of their four-year age gap, which he said felt like “the size of the Grand Canyon” at the time.
Despite the “intense feelings” he had for Wasserman, Eisner ended their relationship on the platform of the N train at Union Square Station. Earlier that night, they had gone bowling at Bowlmor Lanes, now known as Lucky Strike, at its since-closed Union Square location, where Eisner had lent Wasserman his hoodie.
A few weeks later, Wasserman wrote the letter that he rediscovered in 2025. After finding it, he spent the next day debating whether to contact Eisner before giving in. He texted him, saying, “Do you remember the night you lent me your hoodie?”
Eisner did.
As it turned out, Eisner had tried to reconnect with Wasserman by text earlier that year after becoming single again. “I always had Eli in the back of my mind,” he said. But Wasserman had changed his number and never received the text.
Wasserman, now 41, had left New York in December 2022 and moved to Irvine, Calif., near his hometown Claremont. He continues to work as a fashion stylist, and counts several actors and musicians among his high-profile clients.
Eisner, 45, is from Dix Hills, N.Y., and holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and musical theater from Indiana University Bloomington.
A longtime hobbyist cook, he transitioned from public relations to become a cookbook author and YouTube personality. His first book, “The Step-by-Step Instant Pot Cookbook,” published in April 2020, was an Amazon best seller, which led to four more books.
Wasserman’s initial text led to a week of messaging, during which they caught each other up on their lives since they had last been in touch.
“I realized I had never stopped loving Eli, but my fear and insecurity held me back,” Eisner said.
“I couldn’t bear getting hurt again, but I had dreams about Jeffrey so many nights over the years,” Wasserman said.
Then came a FaceTime call.
“As soon as I saw his face over the video and heard his voice, it was like our first date where I couldn’t breathe,” Wasserman said.
On seeing Wasserman, Eisner said, “My heart was fluttering. I knew I couldn’t miss the opportunity this time around.”
The pair said their conversation sent their relationship “off to the races.”
A week after their call, Eisner flew to California to see Wasserman, and from the moment they saw each other at Los Angeles International Airport, the two never stopped holding hands.
They walked Laguna Beach, went to Disneyland and had Chinese food at one of Wasserman’s favorite restaurants, Genghis Cohen, in the city’s Fairfax District.
That summer, they alternated visits between New York and Irvine. When he went to California, Eisner took to cooking for Wasserman. “One of the most popular recipes I published is for Jewish brisket, so I made that a lot,” he said.
In New York, they indulged their love of theater. One evening, they caught “Masquerade,” an Off Broadway musical adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” at a Midtown Manhattan theater, in which theatergoers move through more than two dozen rooms as the story unfolds.
“Our jaws hit the floor,” Eisner recalled. “It was a night of beauty, romance and spectacle.” Little did they know that the show’s set would later serve as their wedding venue.
Between their bicoastal trips, the pair sent each other A.I.-generated cartoons of them together. In one from Wasserman to Eisner, they were on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, a nod to their first date. Another, from Eisner to Wasserman, depicted them dining at Carnegie Deli.
Unbeknown to each other, both saved the images with the intention of compiling them into comic books to give to the other: Wasserman as part of a proposal and Eisner for Wasserman’s 40th birthday gift.
In September 2025, Eisner relocated to California with his Norwich terrier, Banjo, and moved in with Wasserman and his three pets: Dude, a Cavapoo; Biggie, a Bernedoodle; and Leeloo, a Ragdoll cat. A macaw parrot, Fanny, joined the coterie in April.
“I’ve always considered myself a New Yorker at heart, but the winters were getting to me as I got older,” Eisner said of the move. “I needed a change of scene, and I craved sunshine.”
They became engaged that same month on a weekend getaway to San Francisco to celebrate Wasserman’s 40th birthday. On the morning of Sept. 9, Eisner woke Wasserman and presented him with the comic book he had made.
“I was overwhelmed and confessed that I was making a comic book of my own to propose,” Wasserman said. “We decided that the only logical thing to do at that time was to get engaged.”
They picked their rings, yellow gold bands from Cartier’s Fifth Avenue store, on a trip to New York that November.
A year after Eisner relocated to the West Coast, the couple moved into a midcentury modern home they had bought in Long Beach. “It’s our forever home,” Eisner said.
When it came to choosing their wedding venue, they got the idea to get married at “Masquerade” and contacted the show’s senior producer, Cesar Hawas, to ask if they could marry there.
“We hadn’t ever had a wedding at the show, but I told them that we would somehow pull it off,” Hawas said.
Their wedding on Oct. 15, attended by 105 guests, was held in two of the show’s rooms. Rabbi Matt Green, of Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, officiated.
Wasserman wore a Maison Margiela double-breasted black tuxedo for the occasion, paired with a Venetian mask adorned with horses and rhinestones. Eisner wore a cream tuxedo by Ralph Lauren Purple Label. His mask, also Venetian, had large wings on both sides. Guests were asked to dress extravagantly and wear masks.
The ceremony took place under a huppah beneath a large-scale crystal chandelier. Guests then made their way through the show and wound up in the reception space, the Phantom’s lair, a dark, candlelit room designed to look like the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera House.
The celebration continued back in the chandelier room for dancing and dessert. The newlyweds shared their first dance to “Always,” by Irving Berlin, a song that Eisner’s late grandmother, Lillian Simonoff, often sang to him while he was growing up. “The song is sentimental to me and also captures our relationship,” Eisner said. “We’ve always loved each other since we met.”
On This Day
When: Oct. 15, 2026
Where: The “Masquerade” space on West 57th Street
A Deli Feast As a tribute to their first date and shared love of Jewish cuisine, the couple felt it only fitting to have a deli spread to feed their guests. They ordered the meal from Brooklyn Diner, located near the theater. The menu included pastrami, corned beef, turkey, pigs in a blanket, knishes and kugel.
A Memory of Mom Wasserman accented his tuxedo lapel with a diamond pin made from a family heirloom pendant. The pendant had belonged to his late mother, Sharon Wasserman, who died in an accident when he was one.
The Night Goes On After “Masquerade,” the party moved to RPM Underground, a pop-culture-filled bar and karaoke spot in Midtown Manhattan. After changing into velvet tracksuits adorned with bejeweled masks and roses, the grooms joined their guests to sing, sip cocktails, and eat pizza until 4 a.m. By the time they made it back to their hotel, the newlyweds fell asleep with their clothes still on.
