It began, as all the great love stories do. over drinks. at a bar. in New York City.

The year was 2020, which history will record as many things, few of them good. For a good deal of the year, the world was closed. Not in the way a shop closes, with a sign and a promise to return, but completely, the way a book closes when someone has lost interest and sets it on the pile of other books they mean to finish and may someday pick back up when utterly bored. We were on the outside of everything. Days gave way to weeks, gave way to months. And then, slowly and with considerably less fanfare than the closing, we were timidly let back outside — blinking, tentative, and only somewhat sure we remembered how any of it worked.
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The place was Brooklyn, on one of those warm October evenings that makes you briefly, irrationally optimistic about the impending winter. Maybe this year it won't be so bad.
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Stephen was interviewing for a job in Seattle.
This is what New Yorkers claim they're open to doing when they want a hard reset, but are secretly searching for an apartment in their soon to be adopted city that's walkable to the nearest grocery store.
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Christian, meanwhile, was moving to New York. This is what people do before they understand what they're agreeing to — and brave enough to do it anyway. He arrived with optimism that finding an apartment would be easy and cheap. It was neither.
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They were ships in the night destined to miss each other. Into this situation stepped Joe — Stephen's friend, Christian's cousin, matchmaker, and a man who has been taking credit ever since with the quiet confidence of someone who knows he cannot be fired. He is not wrong. But he was not alone. Sam handled logistics.
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Joe suggested they all meet for dinner at a neighborhood place on Grand Street in Brooklyn. Neither Stephen nor Christian knew this was a set up. Joe and Sam failed to make that point clear. Christian had plans post dinner. Stephen did too. Pleasantries were exchanged. Numbers were not. For all practical purposes, this meet-cute was a dud.
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Eight months passed.
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Christian moved in with his sister on Clifton Street, literally around the corner from where he met Stephen. It was an apartment in a beautiful brownstone — the best of Brooklyn. This apartment's other claim to fame: it also brought together his sister and her now husband, making that one two-bedroom rental personally responsible for two marriages and putting it well ahead of most dating apps.
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Meanwhile, Stephen said yes to the job offer on the other side of the country. Then, in a move that will surprise no one who has ever met him, he simply didn't go. He had reasons for not going. Most of them not relevant to this story.
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The next time they met, they were conveniently ready to make good on the setup.
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Fast forward to a pride party in June. They arrived separately. They did not leave that way. And they haven't been since.
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There are people in your life who make the important words come easily — who make the world feel bigger just by being in it with you. New Zealand. Bali. Corners of the earth that didn't need visiting until they did. There is also the smaller magic: a glance across a room that contains, without a single word, an entire conversation — pointed, complete, and usually at someone else's expense. This is what it looks like when you've found your person. Christian is that person for Stephen. Stephen is that person for Christian.
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Everyone reading this has played a part in how our love story came to be — and part of how it continues. You showed up at the right moments, said the right things, and loved us both enough to bring us together and keep us together. As we prepare to embark on the next chapter of our lives, we find ourselves overwhelmed with gratitude — for your love, and for all of you who helped shape ours. We can't wait to celebrate with you.