A slow, awkward dance started it all

Without a word, they began to dance.

“It was a visual negotiation,” said Alan Emanuel Pierson, who caught the eye of Paul Nikolai Melnikow while they were seated next to each other in October 2016 for a “queer prom.”

The event took place about 20 hours after artist Taylor Mac’s 24-hour marathon, “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” at St. Ann’s Warehouse, a performing arts space in Brooklyn. (The cycle of 246 songs began in 1776 the day before at noon.)

“It was exciting, awkward, definitely a little intoxicating,” Mr. Pierson said, as they slow danced to a ballad rendition of Ted Nugent’s “Snakeskin Cowboys” by Matt Ray, the event’s musical director and arranger.

They did not leave each other’s side for the rest of the performance, and Mr. Pierson asked for Mr. Melnikow’s email address.

“Our fairly busy email registration reminded me of college,” Mr. Melnikow said.

Over the next few weeks, he met Mr Pierson, who by then had a long-standing relationship, twice – for coffee and a concert.

“Platonic with a spark,” is how Mr. Pierson described him.

(Click here to binge-read this week’s featured couples.)

Mr. Melnikow, 45, grew up in Syracuse, New York, and received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brown. He is the CEO of Curvewise, a digital anthropometry company that provides body measurements for clothing sizing systems. He also works as Mr. Pierson’s manager, agent and occasional collaborator.

Mr. Pierson, 51, is a 2026 Grammy-nominated artistic director and conductor who grew up in Chicago. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and music from MIT and a doctorate in conducting from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

His new 20-member musical ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, performs innovative versions of contemporary works, including premieres by John Adams and Steve Reich. He is also director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble at the Northwestern Bienen School of Music in Evanston, Illinois, and has collaborated across several disciplines, including with singer Erykah Badu.

In November, Mr. Melnikow, curious but confused about the relationship and depressed over the outcome of the presidential election, simply stopped responding to Mr. Pierson’s emails.

Five months later, in March 2017, shortly after Mr. Pierson ended his previous relationship, he asked Mr. Melnikow on a real date: a performance of John Adams’ “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Melnikow happily agreed and suggested dinner at Kashkaval Garden, a nearby Mediterranean restaurant.

At the concert, Mr. Pierson, musician that he is, continued to watch to gauge Mr. Melnikow’s reaction and liked what he saw.

While Mr. Melnikow took the subway home to Park Slope, Brooklyn, Mr. Pierson headed to Riverdale in the Bronx and sent him an e-mail in transit, asking him to attend the Nonesuch celebration of Bob Hurwitz, retiring as label president, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music the next evening.

Mr. Melnikow, who was already going there with some friends, suggested they have dinner at 67 Burger in nearby Fort Greene. He then joined Mr. Pierson for the after-party.

“It was extremely exciting,” said Mr. Melnikow, who tried to keep his feet on the ground when he met the composers Donnacha Dennehy and Steve Reich, and literally bumped into Mandy Patinkin.

Mr. Melnikow invited him to dinner the following weekend, and that afternoon, as they walked through Prospect Park, he impressed him by picking chives, which later appeared in a salad. They also had a first kiss that evening.

In 2018, they moved into an apartment near Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, which they purchased just before Covid hit. That’s when “our house started to feel like a house,” said Mr. Melnikow, who helped create the video project “Ten Thousand Birds/Ten Thousand Screens” with Alarm Will Sound.

Over the years, they said they also built a “chosen family.” At the center of their “chosen family” is Pyper, a 32-year-old transmasculine artist who grew up Mormon in Utah Valley, and whom the couple plans to adopt this year.

“Do you want to get married?” ” Mr. Melnikow asked Mr. Pierson in August 2025 while they were visiting his parents in Syracuse, and quickly added, more formally: “Will you marry me, Alan Pierson?”

A few weeks later, on a summer night, the couple wandered through Prospect Park, banging metal objects during a drum-filled walk, before Mr. Pierson casually proposed on the way home.

On Jan. 3, Taylor Mac, a Universal Life minister they consider their “spiritual godmother,” officiated before 50 guests at the Lighthouse Lounge at Admiral at the Lake in Chicago, the retirement home of Mr. Pierson’s parents.

The wedding theme was “Queer/Queer Family Ball” and their first dance was to Matt Ray’s version of “Snakeskin Cowboys,” performed by Taylor Mac — the same song he sang the night the couple first met.