Taking Vows: Caroline Randall Williams Marries Timothy Scott Darrah
Nashville local Caroline Randall Williams and Tim Darrah met on Bumble, a dating app, in February 2022. They first had coffee together at Fido in Hillsboro Village on a Tuesday, and he called on Saturday evening to ask for a lunch date in the upcoming week. “The next day,” said Caroline, “I told my roommate I thought I’d met the man I was going to marry. The following Tuesday, we went on a lunchtime walk, and the rest was history.” They declared their love for one another within a month. She met Tim’s 12-year-old daughter; he met Caroline’s mother. “We knew we were doing a thing,” she added. “We were off to the races.”
Through his work with NASA, Tim was invited on a spring research trip to Sweden and asked Caroline if she would like to join him. Little did Caroline know, Tim had been surreptitiously working on buying a ring for Caroline with Caroline’s mother. While traveling through Europe, Tim proposed in Brussels, kneeling to pop the question as they strolled across a bridge.
Caroline is the great-granddaughter of Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps, so it was important that literary greats were highlighted throughout the couple’s festivities. Each table at the rehearsal dinner was named after a Harlem Renaissance writer and included an excerpt of their writing. At the wedding, tables were playfully named with references to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a favorite work of the bride’s.
They married in April at Grace Church, the Episcopal parish in New York City where Caroline was baptized, and the Reverend Julia Macy Offinger officiated. The bride wore Vera Wang Bride’s shimmering Lys gown with a cathedral-length train, and later — for dancing the evening away — Caroline changed into a beaded dress by Naeem Khan.
The reception was at a private club overlooking Central Park, its rooms filled with colorful wildflower arrangements by Putnam Flowers. Guests enjoyed a multicourse seated dinner — a rack of lamb or sea bass — with wine pairings selected by the bride’s godfather, Jun Makihara. Afterward, they danced to the live music of The Band Method. The pistachio wedding cake was designed by Ron Ben-Israel, and — as a nod to Tim’s work with NASA — the groom’s cake was shaped like a rocket. Page & Windrow of Nashville planned the event.
After a tropical wedding trip to the Rosewood Bermuda on St. David’s Island, the couple returned to Nashville, where Caroline is a writer, performer and professor at Vanderbilt University. Tim is a NASA Fellow and the chief operating officer of tech start-up ARMS Cyber.
Caroline is an alumna of Harvard University and received her MFA in poetry from the University of Mississippi. Tim, a United States Army veteran and graduate of Tennessee State University, is currently completing his Ph.D. in complex systems at Vanderbilt University. The bride is the daughter of Nashville novelist and songwriter Alice Randall and the late Avon N. Williams III. The groom’s parents are Wanita and Doug Johnson of Hutchinson, Kansas.
