When Dr. Kevin Wei-Han Chi and Brian Chiu matched on the Coffee Meets Bagel app in November 2015, both were still coming out. Dr. Chi kept his first relationship with a man a secret for four years, while Mr. Chiu had only been in short-term relationships with women.
In his medical residency, then, Dr. Chi was meeting as many men as he could manage between long hospital shifts. On a rare weekend off, he decided to make the one-hour drive to San Francisco from his home in Mountain View, Calif., for another first date he thought would go nowhere.
What began with soufflé pancakes at Griddle Fresh (now known as Pancake Boy) in the city’s Noe Valley neighborhood turned into a 10-hour date that included taking in the views of the city from Twin Peaks, and sharing their coming out stories at the Sutro Baths ruins overlooking the Pacific Ocean at sunset. After a sushi dinner, they ended the evening at Mr. Chiu’s place. While listening to Adele’s newly released album, “25,” they shared their first kiss.
In addition to their love of puzzles, escape rooms, travel, camping and backpacking through the wilderness, both come from conservative Asian backgrounds. Mr. Chiu admired how much compassion Dr. Chi had for his family members who couldn’t accept his sexuality right away.
“I realized I really value that type of insight and wisdom in a partner,” Mr. Chiu said. Feeling unusually comfortable for a first date, Mr. Chiu asked Dr. Chi how many children he wanted and how he would want to have them.
Such directness “could seem like a red flag,” Dr. Chi said, “but Brian was just so authentic.”
Four days later, Mr. Chiu drove to Mountain View, and the two worked on a Thanksgiving diorama of an apple stand with turkeys.
Dr. Chi then left on a two-week trip to his parents’ native Taiwan. They chatted or texted daily while he was away.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
Dr. Chi, 36, is a pediatrician at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and a clinical associate professor at Stanford School of Medicine. After graduating from Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology, he attended medical school and did his residency and fellowship at Stanford. He grew up in Castro Valley, Calif.
Mr. Chiu, 36, is from Singapore and moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan with his mother as a teen. He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Bucknell University and is a real estate agent with Aspire Homes Realty, which is based in San Jose, Calif.
The two moved in together in May 2017, and in 2018, they adopted Summer, a maltipoo. In February 2022, they bought the house they now live in, in Sunnyvale, which precipitated the marriage conversation.
They agreed they would each propose in 2023, at the time and place of their choosing.
Dr. Chi went first by proposing at Disneyland in August 2023, while Mr. Chiu proposed four months later while hiking the Milford Track in New Zealand, while fighting bouts of presumed food poisoning.
They were married at Camp Mendocino in Fort Bragg, Calif., on May 25 in front of 134 guests. Mr. Chiu’s aunt Ee Ping Mah, known as Janice, who was ordained by American Marriage Ministries for the occasion, officiated.
Two of Mr. Chiu’s other aunts, Sharon Koh and Agnes Chelliah, took over the grooms’ kitchen for three days straight in a stealth dessert operation. They baked trail mix cookies, gluten-free s’mores mini cupcakes, crème brûlée Rice Krispies treats, and made lemon mousse, in addition to a hazelnut buttercream cake.
As for coming out around the time they met, Dr. Chi had come out to his parents a year earlier, in 2014, while Mr. Chiu only came out to family members after they met.
“I joke with Kevin sometimes that I had it easy,” Mr. Chiu wrote over email. “Even though I was coming out to my family, I was almost in the same breath also telling them that I was dating a handsome, Harvard- and Stanford-educated doctor (every Asian parent’s dream!).”
The three-day wedding event included “a bonfire bonanza” the night before, where marshmallows were roasted, as were the grooms. There was also a Taylor Swift “name that tune” guessing game. (Dr. Chi is a huge Swiftie, and he and Mr. Chiu competed against everyone else.)
Ms. Swift figured into the couple’s vows, too. Dr. Chi “ugly cried” throughout his speech, which included the names of several of her songs.
While Mr. Chiu said, “I promise to support your Taylor Swift obsession; I will listen to every conspiracy theory you have, like how the way she winked 13 times at Harry Styles at the Met Gala means she will drop a new album next Tuesday.”
Dr. Chi told Mr. Chiu: “I love you because you taught me that love is not the grand gestures but all the quiet moments in between. And for that, I promise to always hold your hand, even as you fall asleep the moment I start my Netflix rom-coms.”
The post Never Mind the Possible Food Poisoning, the Proposal Had to Go On appeared first on New York Times.
