Over this past Thanksgiving holiday, Timothy Craig Braun and Peter David Arnold broke the news to their 19-year-old fraternal twin daughters: after 25 years together, they were finally getting married.
It was a surprise announcement since the couple, who live in Montclair, New Jersey, had always told their daughters that they were already married.
“I was overwhelmed with emotion and so happy for them,” said Beatrice Braun-Arnold, a sophomore at Denison University in Ohio. She said the family had some open conversations in the days that followed, which made them feel better. “It was an eventful Thanksgiving, to say the least,” she said.
Her sister, Liliane Braun-Arnold, a sophomore at Smith College in Massachusetts, said she “had an idea” that her parents were not married. “They were very adamant about being each other's partners, not each other's husbands,” she said. Additionally, when New York legalized same-sex marriage in 2011, she said, “I heard my parents talking about whether they should get married.”
In fact, when Braun, 61, executive producer who owns Braun Production, a video production and media training agency, and Arnold, 65, executive director of the Fashion Scholarship Fund, met in 1998, the legal marriage It wasn't even an option for same-sex couples.
Long before they crossed paths, they had heard about each other through mutual friends. “Everyone said we should get together,” Braun said, “but we didn't for a couple of years.”
The two finally met in August 1998 at a SoHo art gallery hosting an AIDS fundraiser; Mr. Braun attended with his partner at the time and Mr. Arnold, who was also in a relationship, with a friend. The group then walked to Balthazar for dinner. “It was these three magical blocks,” Braun said.
“You know, when you walk in a group and somehow you're just paired up, that's what happened to us,” Mr. Arnold said.
The two were so enthralled that day that they even remembered what they were wearing. “Peter was a partner in a white shoe firm on Wall Street at the time, and he was wearing this custom-made pinstripe double-breasted suit,” Braun said.
“Tim was wearing a short motorcycle jacket,” Arnold said. “Very much like George Michael.”
The following month, they were single again and met at a cafe in Sag Harbor while they were both in town for the weekend.
After dinner, they chatted during a walk and had their first date a week later when they had both returned to the city; Mr. Arnold sent eight orchids to Mr. Braun's office the next day. The following year, they moved into an apartment together in the West Village.
Marriage was not yet an option, but they wanted a way to express their commitment. They bought wedding rings from Tiffany & Company and had a small ceremony, just the two of them, on New Year's Eve 2000 at Lake Placid Lodge, where they spent the holiday.
“At midnight we gave each other rings on the shores of Lake Placid. I signed up for his and he signed up for mine,” Braun said. “We wrote thoughts about what we each wanted for our relationship, set them on fire and watched them float on the water.”
On July 14, 2004, the couple extended their commitment to each other and became legal domestic partners in New York. Then the two decided they wanted to raise children together. Braun and Arnold worked with Growing Generations, a Los Angeles agency that found them a surrogate mother. “Nowadays it's very common to do this, but it wasn't then,” Braun said. “California was the only place you could legally get a surrogate mother. From the moment we decided we wanted to have children, it took us four years.”
“It was complicated,” Arnold said of her journey with egg donation and surrogacy. The girls were born on September 10, 2004 in San Diego.
When the twins turned 2, that trip was turned into a French documentary called “Two dads in Manhattan.” “Any guy Beatrice dates, she makes him watch the documentary to see how she reacts,” Braun said, laughing.
Same-sex marriage was legalized at the federal level in 2015. But by then, the family of four was wrapped up in their lives. “Life got in the way and we never really thought about getting married,” Braun said. “You had to pay for school, great vacations, camp.”
Furthermore, the couple had always told their daughters that they were married. “We always said, 'Yes, we're married,'” Arnold said. “We didn't want them to feel less secure in their family dynamics.”
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There were some difficult moments when their story almost fell apart. Mr. Arnold remembers one occasion when one of the girls asked him if she was wearing a veil at her wedding. They were driving at the time and he said, “I almost fell off the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Their feelings changed in October 2023. With their daughters at university, Braun and Arnold spent a few months in Europe. They were in Italy and wanted to celebrate their 25th anniversary by getting a pastor to bless their union at a church. “I tried to make this happen as a surprise,” Braun said. However, “no pastor would bless us.” (A couple of months later, on December 17, Pope Francis began allowing blessings for same-sex couples.) He later told Arnold, who became “upset,” Braun said.
“Tim and I were Catholic and we were altar boys,” Mr. Arnold said. “The fact that there wasn't a single open-minded minister, priest or pastor who wanted to do this made us want to” officially get married.
As soon as they returned to the United States, Mr. Braun registered online for a marriage license at Manhattan City Hall. “I went downstairs and told Peter, 'Guess what, we're picking up our marriage license next Friday,'” Mr. Braun said. “He said to me: 'Is this your idea of a proposal?'”
Their wedding ceremony took place on December 29 at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Harlem.
They chose the Rev. Mary Foulke, an Episcopal priest who knows their family well, to officiate. A decade ago, they asked Ms. Foulke, who at the time was pastor of St. Luke in the Fields Church in the West Village, if she would marry them if they decided to get married. “We held her to that 10 years later,” Arnold said.
“It was wonderful for me to connect with a family I had known since the children were preschoolers,” Ms. Foulke said. “It is one of the blessings of ministry to see families and individuals change and grow over time.”
With a large circle of family and friends, they decided to keep the ceremony small just for the two of them and their daughters. “The small ceremony made it more about them and their love for each other,” Liliane said.
In church they recited poems to each other. Mr. Arnold chose words from Maya Angelou. Braun assembled a collection of meaningful songs into a poem that he read. “It was everything from 'Fiddler on the Roof' to Sondheim,” Liliane said.
“I cried throughout the service,” Beatrice added. “My dad said he could hear me sobbing behind them.”
Afterward, the four of them had lunch at Lido, an Italian restaurant near the church owned by Serena Bass, a family friend. “She made this beautiful table with flowers and flower petals,” Mr. Arnold said.
The family wondered if anything would change after the wedding, especially since the couple had been together for so long.
“Three days later, there was a lot of arm-shaking and 'husband' calls,” Liliane said. “I think the wedding further established how strong their bond is.”
“I feel a little more grounded, more secure and comfortable in a way I didn't imagine,” Mr. Arnold said. “It just feels a little better and more permanent in the best way.”
In this day
When December 29, 2023
Where St. Mary's Episcopal Church, New York
Custom boxers For the wedding, Mr. Arnold's three best friends sent the couple something old (photos of the twins as babies superimposed on Brooks Brothers boxers), something new (thin crystal bracelets with letters that spelled the word “groom”). ) and something borrowed (their husbands' old socks). “We were just wearing the bracelets,” Braun said.
A surprise night performance At 7 p.m., after the wedding, the doorbell rang at the family home in Montclair. They were 20 high school students from the Montclair High School a cappella group, “The Passing Notes,” with whom Beatrice, who organized the performance, had performed during high school. “They were on our front lawn and serenaded us in four-part harmony with 'In My Life' by the Beatles,” Mr. Braun said. “A lot of sobbing followed.”
