On a weekend evening in April 2016, Jonathan Runge Stewart came home to his apartment in Manhattan’s West Village from a first date with Enrico Lagasca, elated, his adrenaline running high.
At that time, almost no one knew that Mr. Stewart was romantically interested in men.
Mr. Stewart knew Mr. Lagasca from Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan, where Mr. Lagasca, a classical singer, performed periodically, and where Mr. Stewart headed the board that oversaw the church’s Bach Vespers series. He and Mr. Lagasca saw each other around and were Facebook friends, but had never spent time alone — until that day.
“I had a huge crush on him,” Mr. Lagasca said. When he performed at the church, he would focus on Mr. Stewart. “It was like, I have to impress him,” Mr. Lagasca said.
Mr. Lagasca, 38, grew up in Manila and moved to Orlando, Fla., in 2006. In 2014, he graduated from the Mannes School of Music at the New School with a bachelor’s degree in music. He sings with choirs around the country, and works as a professional soloist with symphonies in the United States, Canada and Germany, including Carnegie Hall and the Portland Baroque Orchestra.
Mr. Stewart, 40, is a lead data scientist at Harmony Labs, an organization that conducts research into media and society. Born and raised in Vincennes, Ind., he has a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, and an M.B.A. from NYU Stern School of Business.
When the two first met in September 2015, Mr. Stewart was dating a woman. Though they split up that winter, Mr. Stewart kept his sexual identity private, so Mr. Lagasca had no idea if his crush was reciprocated and did not make a move.
In April, he wished Mr. Stewart a happy birthday on Facebook Messenger, and within days, they made plans to meet in person. On April 22, 2016, Mr. Lagasca drove five hours from Amherst College, where he was performing that weekend, to New York to hang out with Mr. Stewart, unsure if he was heading into a date or not.
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“I was very excited and very nervous because I didn’t know what to expect,” Mr. Lagasca said. “I had him lead the way.”
They walked along the High Line park and ate dinner at the now-closed Meatball Shop. Afterward, they had drinks at Kettle of Fish, a casual bar in Greenwich Village.
Throughout the evening, Mr. Stewart asked repeatedly what he and Mr. Lagasca were doing there. “He said we’re just having dinner,” Mr. Stewart said. “He didn’t want to scare me off.”
Finally, Mr. Stewart decided to be direct. “I said, ‘You know I like you too, right?’” Mr. Stewart said. They kissed at the end of the evening.
When Mr. Stewart’s roommate, Stephanie Gent, came home, she found him waiting for her.
“He was awake and sitting on the couch expectantly with all the lights on,” Ms. Gent said. “He explained that he’d been on this date, and it was really, really good.” She added, “It seemed like Jon knew that this was extremely special and knew that this was for the long haul.”
“Within a month, I was out to everyone,” Mr. Stewart said.
Their relationship moved quickly. That summer, Mr. Lagasca and Mr. Stewart met each other’s parents and some of their siblings. “It was pretty overwhelming,” Mr. Stewart said. At one point, he had what he and Mr. Lagasca refer to as “a freak-out week.”
“I kind of shut down — I needed a week to work through things,” Mr. Stewart said. For years, he had kept his attraction to men private. “Part of it was identifying as bisexual,” Mr. Stewart said. “I wasn’t fully gay, but I wasn’t straight. Growing up, it was a binary. I had to figure out that there’s a spectrum.”
Telling family and friends that he was dating a man was easier than declaring an identity. “I’m dating this guy. It was an action and something I was doing, as opposed to needing to name and categorize myself in a way I’m still not sure about,” Mr. Stewart said.
About a year after their first date, Mr. Stewart moved in with Mr. Lagasca and his friend in Rego Park, Queens. Because Mr. Lagasca travels an average of three weeks out of the month for work, they rarely spent long stretches of time together in one place — until the pandemic. All of Mr. Lagasca’s gigs were canceled, so they stayed at Mr. Stewart’s parents’ house in Michigan for three months.
“We really bonded and had time to really get to know each other,” Mr. Lagasca said. “I valued the simplest things, like walking in the park, being together on the porch. I realized I can live this life forever.”
But growing up with separated parents, Mr. Lagasca didn’t have a strong example of marriage. “I didn’t have a model to look up to,” he said. At one point in their relationship, Mr. Stewart noticed that Mr. Lagasca sometimes seemed more relaxed and comfortable with his friends than with Mr. Stewart.
“I wasn’t so sure that he would actually like me if I’m just the normal Enrico,” Mr. Lagasca said.
“He was so scared to lose me that he was holding it all in,” Mr. Stewart said.
In the spring of 2021, Mr. Stewart told Mr. Lagasca he needed to go to therapy and set a deadline: the end of September.
On Sept. 29, Mr. Lagasca had his first session. “Therapy isn’t really a thing in the Philippines,” he said. “Growing up with the idea of talking to a specialist is something very foreign for us. Plus I’m very, very reserved, so it was very difficult to me.”
But after a few sessions, he realized just how much he wanted to make it work between him and Mr. Stewart. “I love this guy so much, we’ll get through all the things,” he said. He began to be himself more and realized, he said, “he actually likes this version of me.”
“I can freely laugh at silly stuff without being too self-conscious and feeling like he’ll leave me if I laugh too loudly,” Mr. Lagasca said. “I’m just more comfortable now.”
Mr. Stewart said he noticed the changes in Mr. Lagasca within two sessions. “Within two weeks, our relationship completely turned around,” he said.
On Jan. 14, 2022, they became domestic partners and exchanged black titanium David Yurman rings. Nearly a year later, on Christmas Eve, Mr. Stewart planned to propose at Fort Tryon Park near their apartment in Manhattan, but because it was six degrees outside and windy, they rushed home after a short walk with the dog to warm up in bed.
There, Mr. Stewart popped the question. At first, Mr. Lagasca thought he was joking — Mr. Stewart had “half proposed” to him in the summer of 2022 on a hike in Santa Fe, N.M. — but once he realized that Mr. Stewart was serious, he said yes.
“I liked the simplicity of it,” Mr. Lagasca said of the proposal. “It felt more personal and private.”
They were wed by the Rev. Matthew A. Welsch on May 11 at Trinity Church Wall Street in front of 139 guests. Mr. Lagasca performs at the Episcopal Church, and Mr. Stewart attends services there sometimes.
“We both connect to the church because it’s not just pomp and circumstance, but there’s care and formality, and rigorous attention to the traditional religious services,” Mr. Stewart said.
Mr. Lagasca’s friends and colleagues debuted a setting of the traditional Latin text “Ubi Caritas” composed by Mr. Lagasca’s friend, Ily Matthew Maniano, and conducted by another friend, Richard Sparks.
Everyone who wanted to was encouraged to take communion. “We were smiling, just seeing a multi-faith group of folks gather and get their blessings and maybe bread,” Mr. Lagasca said.
Afterward, the grooms and their guests headed to Dumbo Loft in Brooklyn for a cocktail hour and a Filipino feast that included three whole roasted pigs; lumpia, which are similar to spring rolls; stuffed mushrooms; adobo chicken braised in soy sauce and vinegar; beef stew; chop suey; and a mango and ube cake. “It was very meaningful to be able to share my culture through food,” Mr. Lagasca said.
Mr. Stewart and Mr. Lagasca wore tuxedos for the ceremony. For the reception, they changed into traditional Filipino outfits called barongs, which are very thin hand-painted shirts made of pineapple fibers.
Both grooms were exceedingly pleased with the wedding. “I couldn’t have been happier,” Mr. Lagasca said.
“This was the first gay wedding in my family, and they all came,” Mr. Stewart said. “I have family and friends of different political beliefs and even some people who aren’t totally into gay marriage, but that didn’t matter. People were still loving and supportive. It was so wonderful for us.”
On This Day
When May 11, 2024
Where Trinity Church Wall Street and Dumbo Loft
Take-Home Culture Guests took home gift bags made of abaca, a Filipino fiber from a banana tree’s stalk. Inside, they found a Capiz shell, which used to be a common building material in the Philippines for windows and lamps, and chocolates from Charlie’s Candies, a store in Mr. Stewart’s hometown in Indiana.
Last-Minute Solo The night before the wedding, the grooms asked their friend, Bianca Lopez-Aguila, to perform a solo of Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria” during the ceremony after a flight cancellation forced the person who had planned to do it to back out. Ms. Lopez-Aguila had flown into New York from Manila two days earlier. “She was jet-lagged, but she said, ‘OK, I’m going to be a trouper,’” Mr. Lagasca said. “She just jumped in.”
DIY D.J. Mr. Stewart created the playlists for the reception and threw in special requests, like “Baby Shark” for the children. The curation “was wonderful,” Mr. Lagasca said. “Everybody was dancing.”
