After his first date with Shawn Patrick Lamb in January 2019, Jarrold Jenn-yu Wong started crying. “It was the first time I felt I could be loved unconditionally for who I am,” he said.
Dating had never brought him much joy. “It wasn’t because I didn’t try,” said Mr. Wong, known to friends as Jay, “but there is a lot of racism against Asians in the gay community, and after some disappointment, I decided to focus on my career and myself. “
Mr Lamb shared his concern.
“I had a great job, great friends and a great family, but I was skeptical about romance,” said 33-year-old Mr Lamb. After going through a handful of bad relationships, he was almost certain that Mr. Right wouldn’t show up any time soon – if ever.
Both were on Tinder and they matched in December 2018. Their playful text chatter led to the first date at a Denver bar where they lived. Fear quickly gave way to calm, and after several drinks Mr. Lamb his “no food on the first date” rule and suggested moving to Bar Dough for his favorite pizza.
Hours of conversation included topics normally off limits on a first date: Both said they want kids. They also learned that they had all grown up in close-knit, supportive families, Mr. Lamb in Springfield, Pennsylvania, and Mr. Wong in San Francisco. Both parents had been active in PFLAG, a support group for parents of LGBTQ children, which had played an important role in their sons’ acceptance of their sexual orientation.
After that, the two had a lingering goodbye, but no kiss. This is when Mr. Wong got emotional on his walk home.
Mr. Lamb felt the same way. “I’d been on so many one-sided dates where I’d carried the enthusiasm,” he said. “This was very different.”
The next night they met again and a kiss sealed the evening. A few months later, on St. Patrick’s Day, Mr. Lamb, in neon green and white striped overalls and fluttering fluorescent green false eyelashes, spoke the first “I love you.” Mr. Wong, surprised, eagerly repeated the feeling. By 2020, the two had moved in together in Denver.
Mr. Lamb graduated from the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in higher education administration from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. He now works at Deloitte Canada in Toronto, where he is a campus recruitment manager.
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After graduating from Columbia University with a double major in economics and East Asian languages and cultures, Mr. Wong attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a double major in management and marketing. He is now Executive Vice President at Exclusive Resorts, based in Denver.
A year after moving in together, under the guise of a business trip, Mr. Wong made a secret trip to Mr. Lamb’s hometown of Springfield to ask for his parents’ blessing.
Just before sunset, on March 29, 2021, Mr. Wong blindfolded Mr. Lamb under the guise of taking Mr. Lamb to a surprise dinner, before a driver took them to a seaside pavilion where, to Mr. Lamb’s surprise, he was met by his younger sister Maggie Lamb, Mr. Wong’s younger sister, Reese Wong, and two close friends who had secretly flown in that day. On bended knee, Mr. Wong proposed to a tearful Mr. Lamb, who enthusiastically accepted before their sisters draped them in wreaths of flowers.
Later that year, the couple bought a house in Toronto, where Mr. Wong had lived before moving to Denver. They now divide their time between Toronto and Denver.
On Dec. 3, after a rain shower cleared for their late afternoon ceremony, the couple married in an outdoor ceremony in front of 129 guests at the Lanikuhonua Cultural Institute in Kapolei, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Jessy O’Neill, Mr. Lamb’s best friend, who became a Universal Life Minister for the event, acted as official. The men wore tailored tuxedos with Louboutin shoes, the slick red soles of which had been destroyed after walking a coral trail.
“With the fateful swipe of a finger, Jay came into my life at the perfect time and made everything in life exponentially better,” Mr Lamb said in his vows, before pledging to be a “great dad to our kids” and Mr Wong “be the car DJ and pick the wine.”
In his vows, Mr. Wong mentioned the many things he liked about his partner, including his spontaneity and determination before promising to listen, being the couple’s travel planner and, as often as he could remember, chewing with his mouth closed . “I couldn’t be more thankful for the life we built together,” he said. “A life better than any rom-com.”