It was springtime in 2015, and the cherry blossoms were flowering in Kyoto when Arthur Bramhandtam (né Tam), now 35, a journalist and swimwear designer from California who was living in Hong Kong, and Anish Bramhandtam (né Bramhandkar), now 31, a software development manager living in New York City, crossed paths as they strolled through the scarlet torii gates near the Fushimi Inari shrine. Miley Cyrus to Lil Nas X: how 10 stars came out as LGBTQ+ “I remember Anish gliding past me down the steps”, Arthur says. “I thought he was cute.” “That is the only time he could describe me as gliding”, Anish deadpans. “I don’t know what he was into – I was wearing a rain poncho.” The couple would eventually get married in a locked down New York City ceremony in 2020, with their wedding photos attracting 112,000 reactions and 4,400 comments on the Subtle Asian Traits Facebook Page. But in 2015 they had yet to go on their first date. We were this queer, interracial couple looking over the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of immigration. It was really nice Anish Bramhandtam After that first encounter, Arthur pulled up a dating app and swiped until he spotted Anish to confirm he was gay before sending him a message. But Arthur’s choice of profile photos – glamorous, outrageous and modelling tiny swim shorts – initially threw Anish. “I just ignored him at first; I thought he was a bot or a catfish”, Anish says. “He thought I was too hot for him”, Arthur chimes in. After struggling to successfully navigate the gay dating scene in his native Los Angeles, Arthur had moved to Hong Kong in his mid 20s to become a journalist, reconnect with his roots and start a new life. “LA wasn’t working for me. I was in the suburbs, I’d never had a boyfriend. It was so tragic. I needed a catalyst,” Arthur recollects. Anish, who grew up in the small town of Vestal, near Binghamton, New York, had been single for a year when he met Arthur. “I’d not met anybody successfully in Japan at that point”, he says. “Everyone only wanted to talk to my white best friend, with whom I was travelling.” With Anish eventually convinced that Arthur was for real, the pair arranged to meet for a coffee. “I remember seeing Arthur for the first time – he was wearing way too many colours, a huge jacket and a backpack with flowers on it”, laughs Anish. “I took a sneaky photo of him and sent it to my best friend, asking ‘what did I get myself into?’” As conversation flowed, coffee turned into dinner. “I had booked a table at a kushiyaki [skewered meat] restaurant called Gyu Ho on the outskirts of the city, and I asked Anish if he wanted to come”, says Arthur. Anish, who had been vegetarian for a decade, was promptly presented with a first course of raw beef liver. “There was, maybe, one vegetable in this restaurant”, he laughs. “But the food was delicious!” Why LGBTQ+ icon Jaden Smith is challenging gender norms Despite continuing their separate travels in Japan, and later heading back to opposite sides of the world, Arthur and Anish continued to chat and FaceTime – often twice a day. “We’d watch shows together: Master of None and Steven Universe, ” says Arthur. Within a few months, they decided to meet up again. “We ended up going to Hawaii for our second date. It took 20 hours to get there, and I spent about a whole month’s salary flying to Maui”, says Arthur. “I was hesitant, but I thought ‘love is hard to find. What’s the worst that can happen? Go for it.’” 10 pansexual celebrities starting conversations in Hollywood and music One week of adventures later – including a memorable morning spent watching the sunrise over a volcano – they bade each other farewell. “Arthur checked in at the airport first, and I was so sad watching him go up that escalator”, says Anish. “I just started crying.” Arthur wanted Hong Kong permanent residency and needed a further three and a half years in the city to meet the seven-year requirement, so the new couple made a total of 12 international trips during this time, meeting in various destinations including Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Mumbai, London, Cebu, Yakushima, New York and Los Angeles. “It’s built into my wedding ring that Arthur designed – I have 13 sapphires on my band to represent all the trips we made before Arthur moved to New York, including meeting in Japan”, says Anish. Emotional energy that could have been spent yearning was absorbed by the logistics of arranging where to meet next. “In retrospect, everything always felt so easy”, says Arthur. The couple also shared a mutual experience – they are children of immigrant families. “I walked into Arthur’s household, and I was like: ‘I get how this works. It’s like my household, but Chinese’”, says Anish, who is of Indian descent. “The values are the same; the motivations are the same. China and India – two ancient civilisations with complex cuisines and overbearing mothers.” Eventually, in 2018, Arthur left Hong Kong to be with Anish in New York, and marriage was soon in the cards. “We wanted to propose to each other, to be deliberate about equality,” says Anish. Arthur proposed first, in October 2019, during a family gathering at Anish’s parent’s house. “My mum was in on it,” says Anish. “We were on the porch drinking tea, and she was badgering me, asking ‘when is Arthur going to propose?’ Arthur said he was going to the bathroom, and he came back with the ring.” “He looked like he was about to have a heart attack”, says Arthur with a laugh. Anish reciprocated in March 2020, popping the question on the scenic Bow Bridge in New York’s Central Park with a ring made from emeralds. Meet Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender US state senator But the pandemic, which had just started to spread around the world, put on hold Anish and Arthur’s plans for a destination wedding in Kyoto. “New York went into lockdown two days before Arthur was going to fly to Kyoto to see the venue and confirm it”, says Anish. Instead, the couple chose to keep the original date of their small civil ceremony in New York’s Wagner Park, which was scheduled for the auspicious date of “8/8” – August 8, 2020. “We were this queer, interracial couple looking over the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of immigration. It was really nice,” recalls Anish. “We had about 10 guests, socially distanced. Arthur’s parents attended over FaceTime, and the friend I’d been travelling with in Japan officiated. The biggest challenge was working out how to invite people to a wedding in a pandemic, in a way that asserted their right to be uncomfortable without making them feel guilty about declining.” Is Jackson Theron the next Shiloh Jolie-Pitt? “We poured a lot of ideas from our Kyoto wedding into the civil ceremony – how we would stand, what we would say, what we would wear,” says Arthur. “We wanted to shake up traditional hetero-Christian matrimonial colours; black and white Western formal wear seemed so boring. So I found us matching garments in mint green and lavender – our favourite colours – from Morocco.” The couple also decided to combine their surnames, Bramhandkar and Tam, into a new name: Bramhandtam. “I like the idea of creating a wholly original name,” says Arthur. “The ‘Bramhand’ in my former name is the part with meaning – it means ‘spiritual universe’ in Sanskrit,” Anish explains. “I wanted to keep that. It just feels like a very blessed household, especially when we eventually have kids. Not just two households stapled together.” The couple also intend to hold a bigger wedding in 2022 in Kyoto, where they met, when travel restrictions ease. “I already have my outfits planned,” says Arthur, while Anish jokes: “There’s going to be a small chair in the corner which I sit on for most of [the time], while Arthur has his outfit changes, four solos and 17 entrances.” “I do think when we go back to Kyoto we should return to the shrine, donate some money and pay our respects to the Shinto gods”, says Arthur. “I don’t exactly believe in the concept of ‘The One’, but it’s interesting that we met in a shrine, of all places. Maybe there is something to it.” Want more stories like this? Sign up here . Follow STYLE on Facebook , Instagram , YouTube and Twitter .