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"We had a traditional henna ceremony at our home and we threw a breakfast the next day for our guests! We then had a registry wedding in Bradford and took our guests out to eat and celebrate. Aamir said: "Our wedding was in secret with only 10 guests, we didn’t want or need anyone in and around Bradford from family to find and try to spoil it.Īamir and Amir want other gay South Asians to follow in their footsteps. Though neither men identify as Muslim anymore, they still made sure that their wedding was as traditional as it could be, in a nod to their South Asian heritage. "We had a lot of negativity from communities and family due to our sexuality anyway, but we strive to go towards people that celebrate us and there are so many that do! Both of us grew up Muslim but we no longer identify as Muslim and we are not religious at all." We hope that all the lgbtq+ South Asians out there see us and know that they can do it too. It was important as we really don’t want to be the last ones to do it. Talking to YorkshireLive about the importance of being the first such couple in Bradford to marry, Aamir said: "It meant the world to us. However, the significance of Aamir and Amir's marriage has shone a light on just how difficult it can be for people from the South Asian community to come out as gay. And the couple, from Bradford, did not just have an ordinary wedding, either: theirs marked a very special milestone.Īamir and Amir were the first gay South Asian couple to marry in Bradford, a historic moment for a city with such a large South Asian community. From there the relationship grew organically spending loads of time together, getting to know each other and growing our love."įast forward to seven and a half years, Aamir and Amir, 32, have now been married for three years and are happier than ever.
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Read more: Jane McDonald names her favourite place in Yorkshire and admits it's a 'bit weird'Īamir said: "We met again in the same year, through friends on nights out in Leeds, and really hit it off. But fate seemed set to intervene, as the pair met later that same year and "really hit it off". He was more reserved and I was a bit more extroverted," said Aamir, 30. He said that the two were rather like chalk and cheese, which meant that they did not have an immediate connection. In fact, though the men are now a happily married couple, Aamir admits that they were "not the biggest fans of one another" at first. Over the years, the pair studied the images, attempting to decode the signs of “one hundred years of social history”, and found some recurring symbols.įor example, they suggest that posing together under an umbrella, between the 1880s and 1920s, probably signified a romantic relationship that wedding rings, bracelets and other tokens became increasingly common and reached a peak during WWII, when they were donned mainly by sailors and soldiers and that photo booths (which appeared in the USA from 1924) were significant because, as they didn’t require a photographer or a developer, they allowed a couple to take a portrait without the fear of being “caught”.When Aamir Hassan and Amir Dean met in 2014, neither man knew that they were meeting their future husband for the very first time. The story of the collection is told by Hugh and Neal in the essay “An accidental collection”, included in their book, Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s-1950s, published by 5 Continents Editions. Thanks to the pair’s formidable research and passion, today their collection amounts to over 2,800 vintage photographs spanning from roughly 1850 to 1951, shot in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Japan, Latvia, the UK and the USA.