Ahead of their civil ceremony, Mishti Rahman and Philip Kanis wanted to pay tribute to their Bangladeshi and Greek cultures, as well as their friends.
Philip Kanis still remembers the techno warehouse party he hosted in Sydney, Australia, in 2013, when he was assessing the room from the top of a staircase and Mishti Rahman walked in with a mutual friend.
“She stood out a lot in the sea of black T-shirts and black jeans,” he recalled. She was wearing an army jacket off the shoulder, baggy ripped jeans and heeled boots.
The two locked eyes and eventually had a brief conversation. At the time, Mr. Kanis was part of a collective that organized underground parties in Sydney.
For the next three months, they exchanged eye contact at these parties and had the occasional conversation. Until one day they became Facebook friends.
There, the two made plans for a coffee date, but the day they were supposed to meet, Ms. Rahman canceled. She was feeling wary of Mr. Kanis — and, frankly, D.J.s in general. “He probably talks to so many girls,” she recalled thinking.
Mr. Kanis said he didn’t blame her for her caution, though he felt such stereotypes did not apply to him. At the time, he’d been trying to figure out what type of career he wanted, and quickly realized throwing parties was not it. “I cut the cord and deleted Facebook and quit the industry and vanished from that scene very quickly,” he said.
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