They Tickled Each Other’s Funny Bone, and Everyone Else’s

Dec 16, 2023

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Abby Barr and Jed Feiman, two comedy writers who regularly riff off each other, also kept their wedding guests laughing.

By Rosalie R. Radomsky

Abigail Renée Barr and Jed Ronner Feiman are intensely supportive of each other in a funny sort of way. They’re both comedy writers.

"That's our relationship," she said. "Building jokes." That and their mutual love for TV and pop culture.

When Ms. Barr first came across his Bumble profile in July 2016, she was delighted that "he was a native New Yorker interested in comedy and theater." (In her vows she joked: "How could this possibly work? You’re from the Upper East Side. I’m from the Upper West Side.")

She spotted a screenshot on his dating profile of one of the many humor pieces he wrote in The New Yorker magazine with his writing partner. So, she searched on Google and came up with his full name (only first names appear on Bumble where women make the first move).

"It was funny, and impressive," said Ms. Barr, 29, who graduated from Oberlin with a bachelor's degree in theater. She is the social media manager for "Switched on Pop," a pop music podcast on Vulture, a New York Magazine website.

She read other pieces he co-wrote and, on his Facebook page, enjoyed his spoof as a basketball studies major at Georgetown, from where he actually graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in English and government. Mr. Feiman, 33, a comedy sketch performer and actor, is part of Never Sad with Nehemiah Markos, a comedy sketch writing and performing duo.

Mr. Feiman especially got a kick out of a photo of Ms. Barr standing inside a Casper mattress box on her dating profile.

"She looked really cute and fun," he said.

That same evening, after Ms. Barr's gig as a cat in an experimental comedy show at the Peoples Improv Theater in New York, they met at the Raines Law Room, a speakeasy in the Chelsea neighborhood.

"I knew there was a level of funny," said Ms. Barr, who initially found him a bit shy until they bonded over Stephen Sondheim, rattling off one favorite musical after another. "He is a comedian without a brash personality — I knew I really had to crack him"

Then, he blew her away.

"He said I had a Jenny Slate vibe," she said. "She's a petite curly-haired Jewish comedian I worship."

Later, he surprised even himself.

"I’m going to kiss you now," he said. "I’m this short Jewish guy from New York and that's the best I could do to sound suave." And it worked. "She said ‘Yes.’"

[Click here to binge read this week's featured couples.]

They kissed good night before she headed back to the Upper West Side, where she lived with her parents, and was surprised that he did not run the other way when she mentioned that she still lived at home.

"We skipped all the boring games," said Mr. Feiman, who had a studio in the Hudson Yards neighborhood. "It felt so natural right away."

A week later, they went to the now-demolished Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side to see "Don't Think Twice," about an improv group by Mike Birbiglia. They walked all the way back to Hudson Yards, talking about the movie, and soon began seeing each other regularly.

In the fall of 2016, she attended all three of his presidential debate pizza parties.

"We had to turn on ‘Family Guy’ we were so stressed about the country," she said, referring to the animated sitcom. "You wouldn't do that with someone you’re casually dating."

In summer 2017, after she moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, she ended up spending more time at his place, and in August 2019 she officially moved in.

When the pandemic hit, "Hudson Yards turned into an abandoned Disneyland," Ms. Barr said, and in October 2021 they moved to the more bustling Lower East Side, close to where his maternal grandparents once lived.

"Jed became a part of my life," she said. "He became most of my life. Then he became my whole life."

In March 2022, Mr. Feiman planned to propose at a restaurant in Rome, but the service and food were so bad, he went to Plan B.

In May, during Montreal Sketchfest in Canada, he asked Ms. Barr to film him and his partner rehearsing an intentionally bad comedy sketch in Mount Royal Park. Mr. Feiman rambled on about typical licenses, and when he got around to marriage licenses, (Ms. Barr was still filming) he got down on one knee. At the end of the year, they adopted a Cavapoo, Muppet.

"Our wedding was funny but it wasn't a joke," Mr. Feiman said.

The wedding overlapped with the series finale of "Succession," their favorite TV show. "We chose the finale to our singlehood over saying goodbye to Kendall Roy," they said in unison. They watched the final show the next day.

On May 28, Rabbi Dr. Elliot Cosgrove, from Park Avenue Synagogue, officiated before 120 guests on the garden terrace at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where guests wore designer-emblazoned yarmulkes that said: "Ralph Lifschitz" (Ralph Lauren's original name). The two best men, who doubled as ring bearers, pulled lots of paper out of a giant Manhattan Mini Storage box until they got to two tiny velvet ring boxes.

During their cocktail hour, a string quartet from the Diller-Quaile School of Music played TV show theme songs and tunes from video games like the "Legend of Zelda." The couple's ketubah, entitled Chicken Soup for the Soul Mates, featured Manischewitz chicken soup cans in the spirit of Andy Warhol.

"Humor, love and joy," Mr. Feiman said. "Why not? That's what life should be."

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