Real-Life Love
All About ‘Weapons’ Director Zach Cregger’s Marriage to ‘Aquamarine’ Star Sara Paxton
Couples that make horror movies together stay together.
Ever since Weapons hit theaters earlier this month, we’ve been reading up on the movie, which follows the disappearance of a classroom full of children. It’s the second showing from director Zach Cregger, who released Barbarian in 2022.
We noticed that Aquamarine actress Sara Paxton makes an appearance in his latest flick, playing one half of a suburban married couple with Justin Long. It’s a callback to Barbarian, in which he played an actor coming under fire for sexual assault allegations. Though we don’t see his accuser, we do hear her speak in a phone call. Lo and behold, that voice belongs to Paxton!
During our Weapons deep dive, we discovered that Cregger has more than a working relationship with the Return to Halloweentown star. They’ve been married for years!
In fact, Paxton was the first one to lay eyes on the Weapons script. “The first person that I usually give anything I write to is my wife, and so I shared it with her, and I think her response was, ‘Are you okay?’” Cregger told Dread Central. Paxton joined her husband at the Los Angeles world premiere of Weapons on July 31, a rare public outing for the couple. Keep reading for everything else we could dig up about the couple.
Charley Gallay / Getty Images
How did Zach Cregger and Sara Paxton meet?
The couple met on the set of the 2013 rom-com Love & Air Sex, which follows two pairs of exes who can’t decide if they should get back together while the Air Sex World Championships are taking place. Creggers (who doubles as an actor) and Paxton portrayed one of the couples. The movie filmed in Austin, Texas, where they got married years later.
How long have Zach Cregger and Sara Paxton been together?
Though the couple hasn’t disclosed when exactly they started dating, Cregger and Paxton reportedly got engaged a year before their October 2019 wedding. So, we know that they’ve officially been together for at least five years, though their romance has probably lasted longer than that.
View this post on Instagram
What have Zach Cregger and Sara Paxton said about each other?
Though Cregger is known for putting his wife in his movies — an outright declaration of love if we’ve ever seen one — the couple has kept their relationship out of the public eye for the most part. The two don’t show up on each others’ Instagram pages very often, though Paxton did just give her followers a tiny glimpse of her and Cregger’s home and their reading preferences.
They did a book styling session with Maison Plage, a Los Angeles-based company. “We recently completed a book styling session for @sara_paxton and her husband,” the caption of the March 2025 post reads. “This collection included rare comic books, various photography and film titles as well as books from one of the couples favorite artists, Walton Ford.”
A few months earlier, Paxton also gave a bit of insight into her married life at the Los Angeles Mission Thanksgiving on Skid Row event. Paxton told People that she and her husband would be spending the holiday on different coasts. Cregger’s family is on the East Coast, where he had to stay for work at the time. “That’s sad, but that’s OK,” she said. “For the [December] holidays we’ll come together. I think we’re just going to have a New York Christmas.”
The actress revealed that creating their own family traditions has been a bit “sidelined” since they got married months before the COVID-19 pandemic began, but they hoped to start in 2025.
During Cregger’s time in New York, Paxton told the outlet that she’d been “going back and forth to see him” while the project was underway. She might have been referring to Cregger’s work on Weapons.
The director dished on his passion for the genre in a 2022 SlashFilm interview, briefly mentioning his wife. “I love horror movies,” he said. “I listen to death metal every night to fall asleep in my headphones, next to my beautiful, angelic wife. I naturally gravitate towards darker things.”
View this post on Instagram
Do Zach Cregger and Sara Paxton have kids?
The couple hasn’t made it known if they have children or not, with no mention of them in interviews or on social media.
Weapons, In Theaters
