Steven Epprecht and Marcos Ruiz are officially married after celebrating their love with a romantic outdoor wedding in Spain.
The couple exchanged vows at Castillo de Batres, a historic wedding venue surrounded by gardens near Madrid.
Steven announced the happy news by sharing photographs and video from the ceremony with the simple declaration, We’re married!
He described the celebration as more magical and perfect than the couple could ever have imagined.
The photographs show the two grooms coordinating beautifully in white double-breasted dinner jackets, black bow ties and dark trousers.
Steven and Marcos stood beneath large arrangements of white flowers during the ceremony before walking through a joyful shower of flower petals thrown by their guests.
The elegant celebration marked the culmination of a relationship that began across national borders.
Steven and Marcos have been together since 2021.
The couple initially maintained a long-distance relationship between Switzerland and Spain.
Marcos eventually left his life in Spain and moved to Zurich so that he and Steven could build their everyday life together.
The decision represented a significant commitment long before wedding rings entered the story.
Steven became publicly known in Switzerland as a model, influencer and entrepreneur after reaching the final of the Mister Switzerland competition in 2012.
He later built a successful social-media career and co-founded a business working with brands and content creators.
Steven publicly came out as gay during Zurich Pride in 2021 after previously worrying that openness about his sexuality might affect his career.
He has since shared his relationship with Marcos openly, despite occasionally encountering homophobic reactions online.
The couple announced their engagement in August 2025 following a romantic proposal on the Greek island of Mykonos.
Steven arranged for their hotel terrace to be decorated with flowers and candles for a private dinner overlooking the sea.
The plan almost encountered an unexpected obstacle when a large cruise ship temporarily blocked the carefully chosen sunset view.
The ship eventually moved, the sunset returned and Marcos said yes.
Steven later said he had known from the moment they met that Marcos was the man of his life.
He described their relationship as natural and grounded in complete trust, mutual acceptance and the freedom for each partner to remain himself.
After announcing the engagement, the couple considered holding their wedding in Switzerland, Spain or on a Greek island.
They knew that they wanted a warm summer celebration held outdoors and surrounded by the many people important to them.
Steven initially suggested that organising everything before summer 2027 might be difficult.
The couple ultimately accelerated those plans and selected Spain as the place where their two lives and families would come together.
The wedding appears to have included another promise made during the early planning period.
Swiss singer Remo Forrer once jokingly offered to perform at the ceremony, and the newlyweds credited him as their wedding singer after the celebration.
Steven and Marcos thanked their friends, relatives and wedding team for creating a day they said exceeded everything they had imagined.
The images capture an elegant event, but the deeper story is about the journey that brought the couple there.
Their relationship survived distance, an international move and the challenge of combining two established lives in one city.
The wedding also offers another joyful and unapologetically public image of two men building a future together.
Steven has previously spoken about the importance of being open about his sexuality and refusing to hide a central part of his identity from his audience.
Sharing the marriage with hundreds of thousands of followers continues that visibility through celebration rather than explanation.
The couple began as two men attempting to make love work between Spain and Switzerland.
Five years later, Steven Epprecht and Marcos Ruiz walked through falling flower petals at a Spanish castle as husbands.
Dublin is crowded, slightly chaotic and a little rough around the edges. It is also one of the friendliest cities I have visited — especially after dark, when the pubs fill up, strangers start talking and an ordinary night at The George can suddenly become rather memorable.
Some cities win you over with perfect architecture, spotless streets and carefully managed beauty.
Dublin is not one of those cities.
It can feel scruffy, noisy and slightly chaotic. The centre was packed with tourists when I visited for a long weekend in mid-July, and parts of the city had a distinctly rough-around-the-edges appearance.
The Temple Bar
But Dublin has something much harder to manufacture: warmth.
People talk to you. Bartenders acknowledge you. Strangers strike up conversations. Even in the busiest parts of the city, I rarely felt invisible — which matters when you are travelling alone.
And then, of course, there was the Irishman I kissed at The George.
More about him shortly.
A Long Weekend In The Middle Of Everything
I stayed from Thursday until Monday at Point A Hotel Dublin The Liberties, on the south side of the River Liffey.
The hotel was roughly a kilometre from Temple Bar, which turned out to be a practical location. I could walk to the main nightlife areas and retreat from the most intense tourist crowds when I had seen enough matching Guinness hats for one day.
Dublin is compact enough that I did most things on foot. The city’s LGBTQ venues are not concentrated inside one clearly defined gay district. Instead, they are scattered across the centre, with several important places on either side of the Liffey.
That initially makes Gay Dublin seem smaller than it is. There is no enormous rainbow neighbourhood announcing itself from several blocks away. Queer Dublin is woven into the wider city instead — in its bars, political landmarks, performance spaces and history.
The George Was Everything I Wanted It To Be
The main event was The George.
There are gay bars you visit because they are famous, only to discover that their reputation is doing most of the work.
The George – a “reenactment” 😉
The George was not like that.
It was busy, energetic and unpretentious, with the kind of crowd that made it possible to watch the room, dance, talk to people or do all three during the same evening. It felt like a proper gay night out rather than a historical attraction surviving mainly on nostalgia.
Although there is plenty of history.
The George opened in 1985, eight years before consensual sexual activity between men was decriminalised in Ireland. At a time when gay life was still pushed into the shadows by both the law and wider society, it became one of Dublin’s first openly gay social spaces. More than four decades later, it remains the city’s best-known LGBTQ bar and nightclub.
That history gives the venue weight, but it does not make the experience solemn.
My own contribution to its ongoing story was somewhat less politically significant: I kissed an Irishman at The George.
I will protect the innocent by not providing further identifying information. Let us simply say that Irish charm is not an invention of the tourism industry.
The George is the place I would recommend for anyone wanting the biggest and most recognisably gay night out in Dublin. It hosts drag, DJs, bingo and other events throughout the week, so it is worth checking the programme before deciding which night to visit.
But even without a special event, the place has energy.
The George was awesome. Sometimes the simplest review is also the most accurate.
PantiBar Felt Like A Gay Local Pub
If The George was the big night out, PantiBar was the place where I could settle in.
Located on Capel Street north of the river, PantiBar is associated with Panti Bliss, the drag performer, publican and LGBTQ campaigner often affectionately described as the Queen of Ireland.
Pantibar
The atmosphere was cosy and friendly when I visited. It felt less like a nightclub and more like a proper pub that just happened to be fabulously gay.
That distinction matters, especially for solo travellers. Not every evening needs to involve a dance floor, flashing lights or shouting directly into somebody’s ear. Sometimes you want a drink, good music and the chance to have an actual conversation.
Dublin’s official visitor guide makes much the same distinction: The George is the larger nightlife institution, while PantiBar has more of a pub atmosphere — although it can become considerably livelier at weekends.
Directly across from PantiBar is Pennylane, its more polished sister venue, which opened in 2019 and presents itself as a relaxed gay cocktail bar. It is an easy addition for anyone planning a Capel Street evening.
South of the river, visitors can also investigate Street 66, a more laid-back LGBTQ bar near Temple Bar, or look for one of Mother’s disco and electronic club nights at Lost Lane. Dublin’s queer club events are often held weekly or monthly rather than every night, so checking current listings and social media before travelling is essential.
My broader experience was that Dublin had no shortage of bars, gay or otherwise, and the people in most of them were friendly.
The difficulty was not finding somewhere to drink.
The difficulty was accepting that I could not reasonably visit all of them.
The Tour That Changed How I Saw The City
One of the best things I did in Dublin happened during daylight.
I joined an LGBTQ history walking tour led by Helena, who was knowledgeable, engaging and very good at connecting individual stories to the streets and buildings around us.
It would have been easy to spend the weekend moving between pubs without understanding what those spaces represented. The tour added the missing context.
Trinity College
The route explored landmarks connected to Dublin’s queer history, including Liberty Hall, Trinity College, the former Hirschfeld Centre, Diceman’s Corner and The George. It also introduced figures including Panti Bliss and Dr Lydia Foy, whose legal campaign became an important part of the movement for gender recognition in Ireland.
Ireland’s transformation has been remarkable.
Same-sex sexual activity between men was only decriminalised in 1993. Just 22 years later, Ireland became the first country in the world to introduce marriage equality through a national popular vote.
Those dates are recent enough to make the history feel immediate.
The George was already operating while gay men were still criminalised. Many of the people who later celebrated marriage equality had lived through the period when simply being open could threaten their jobs, relationships and safety.
Helena brought those contrasts to life without turning the tour into a dry lecture. It was informative, moving and occasionally funny — which felt appropriate for a community that has often survived through humour as much as protest.
For gay travellers, I would consider this tour nearly as essential as visiting the bars.
Nightlife shows you the Dublin that LGBTQ people built.
The history tour helps you understand why they had to build it.
Yes, You Probably Have To Visit Guinness
Then there is the Guinness Storehouse.
This is the attraction everybody tells you to visit, which naturally makes you wonder whether it is a genuine experience or an extremely elaborate method of selling branded merchandise.
The answer is: both — but it is done exceptionally well.
The Storehouse is enormous, immersive and impressively professional. The self-guided experience takes visitors through the ingredients, brewing process, history and advertising of Guinness before ending in the Gravity Bar, with panoramic views across Dublin and, naturally, a pint.
This is corporate storytelling on an almost theatrical scale.
Even if you are not deeply fascinated by how roasted barley becomes stout, the displays, historic advertising and sheer polish of the production make it worthwhile. The final view from the seventh-floor Gravity Bar also helps you understand the geography of a city that can feel confusing at street level.
It is touristy.
It is commercial.
It is also very good.
Sometimes an attraction becomes obligatory because the marketing department has an enormous budget. Sometimes it becomes obligatory because it genuinely delivers.
The Guinness Storehouse manages to be both.
Dublin’s Rough Edges Are Part Of The Experience
I would not describe Dublin as beautiful in the conventional European-city-break sense.
There are handsome Georgian buildings, historic streets and impressive landmarks, but there is also traffic, worn shopfronts, construction, crowds and a general sense that the city has not been polished specifically for your arrival.
At first, I was unsure how I felt about that.
After a few days, I began to appreciate it.
Dublin feels lived in. It has scuffed shoes rather than a freshly pressed suit. The roughness is visible, but so is the humour and friendliness.
Temple Bar was packed with visitors in July, particularly in the evenings. It is worth seeing, but it often felt more like an international tourism convention with Irish music than the heart of everyday Dublin.
Walking a few streets away usually changed the atmosphere quickly.
That is perhaps the best way to experience the city: visit the famous places, but do not stay trapped inside them.
Is Dublin Worth A Gay Weekend?
Absolutely.
A Thursday-to-Monday stay gave me enough time to explore during the day, experience several different nights out and recover at least partially before flying home.
The gay scene is not enormous, but it has variety. The George offers the full club experience. PantiBar provides the warmth of a queer pub. Pennylane adds cocktails, Street 66 offers a more relaxed alternative, and Mother caters to anyone still capable of dancing after midnight.
More importantly, Dublin’s LGBTQ history is visible once you know where to look.
This is a country that moved from criminalisation to marriage equality within little more than two decades. The bars are not merely entertainment venues; several are part of that social history.
Dublin did not charm me by pretending to be perfect.
It won me over by being funny, friendly, complicated and very much itself.
I arrived expecting Guinness, pubs and some gay nightlife.
I left with a much better understanding of Irish LGBTQ history, several memorable conversations and confirmation that The George deserves its reputation.
Andy Cohen has taken the next public step in his relationship with boyfriend Kevin Sobieski.
The Bravo host shared his first main-feed photograph of the couple together on Instagram.
Cohen kept the caption wonderfully simple by writing Date Night alongside hearts, a rainbow, sunshine and celebratory emojis.
The photograph shows the two men smiling closely together as Sobieski places an arm around Cohen’s shoulder.
The relationship itself was no longer a secret before the post appeared.
Cohen confirmed in June that he had found the person he wanted to be with after photographs showed the couple holding hands during his birthday celebrations in New York.
However, the new post represents something different from paparazzi photographs or comments made during a radio interview.
This was a photograph Cohen selected and shared with his own enormous audience.
In the modern language of celebrity relationships, Andy Cohen and Kevin Sobieski are now officially Instagram official.
Their story began at a Fourth of July party in the Hamptons in 2025.
Cohen has admitted that he nearly skipped the gathering entirely.
After noticing Sobieski across the room, he became determined to speak with him.
The two men reportedly spent much of the evening talking before Cohen carefully entered his telephone number into Sobieski’s phone.
He apparently checked more than once that the number had been saved correctly.
The attention to detail appears to have worked.
The men began dating and approached the relationship quietly for almost a year.
Cohen later described their process as slow, deliberate and methodical.
That caution was not merely about protecting a celebrity romance from public attention.
Cohen is also the father of two young children, Ben and Lucy.
Introducing a serious partner into their lives required time and care.
Cohen has said that Sobieski is kind, strong, intelligent and genuinely loving toward his children.
He also described the relationship as unusually easy.
After approximately eleven months together, Cohen said the couple had not experienced a fight or significant disagreement.
He believed they shared a similar way of viewing life and expressed amazement that he had found such a compatible partner.
Cohen originally planned to reveal the relationship publicly around its first anniversary.
That timetable changed after photographs of the men holding hands outside the New York restaurant Via Carota circulated online.
The images transformed months of private dating into a public celebrity story.
Cohen subsequently confirmed on his SiriusXM programme that he was in love and had finally met the person he had been waiting for.
He has since become increasingly comfortable mentioning the relationship publicly.
During a recent episode of Watch What Happens Live, Cohen jokingly acknowledged the sixteen-year age difference between himself and Sobieski.
Those comments confirmed that the relationship was established, but Cohen’s Instagram feed remained largely separate from it.
The new photograph therefore feels like the completion of the couple’s public introduction.
It replaces speculation and photographs taken from a distance with an uncomplicated image of two men enjoying a date together.
The simplicity may be what makes the post so appealing.
There is no elaborate declaration, magazine exclusive or carefully produced video.
Cohen wrote two words and allowed their smiles to communicate everything else.
For longtime viewers, the moment also carries some emotional weight.
Cohen has spent years discussing dating, fatherhood and the difficulty of finding a partner who fits into an already full life.
He has often been presented as Bravo’s energetic bachelor surrounded by the complicated relationships of the Real Housewives universe.
Now the person who asks everyone else about their romances appears to have found one of his own.
The couple have already been photographed during dinners, birthday celebrations and a trip to Miami.
This latest image is still their most personal public milestone because it came directly from Cohen.
Andy Cohen and Kevin Sobieski may have taken their relationship slowly behind the scenes.
The Instagram hard launch itself required only a photograph, a rainbow and the words Date Night.
Armando Niedermeier-Rubio is enduring every parent’s nightmare while separated from his seriously ill daughter by the United States-Mexico border.
Thirteen-year-old Hannah is receiving intensive medical care in Phoenix, Arizona, while Armando remains in Mexico without permission to enter the United States.
The medical emergency began when Hannah called her father and said that she did not feel well.
Armando noticed that one side of her face appeared to be drooping and that one side of her body had lost strength.
He immediately took her to a doctor near the family’s home in Mexico.
The local medical facility did not have all the specialised equipment required to investigate what appeared to be a neurological emergency.
The family therefore decided that Hannah needed to be transferred to the United States for more advanced testing and treatment.
Armando’s mother was able to accompany the teenager across the border in the ambulance.
Armando was not permitted to go with them.
Doctors in Yuma discovered blood in Hannah’s brain but were unable to determine immediately what had caused it.
She was subsequently airlifted to a larger hospital in Phoenix and admitted to intensive care.
Armando’s husband, Kenneth “Kenny” Niedermeier, travelled to Arizona and is now beside Hannah in the hospital.
Armando remains dependent on telephone calls, photographs and medical updates delivered from another country (People).
He said that he went to a United States port of entry hoping to receive emergency humanitarian permission to join his daughter.
According to Armando, border officials told him that the option he requested was not available to him at the port.
He therefore returned to Mexico without being allowed to reach Hannah’s bedside.
Armando is a Mexican citizen married to Kenny, who is an American citizen.
The couple have been pursuing the immigration process that would allow Armando to live legally in the United States, but that case has not yet provided him with permission to enter during the emergency.
Marriage to an American citizen does not by itself create an automatic right to cross the border while an immigration application remains pending.
However, Armando’s attorney is now asking the Department of Homeland Security and other federal officials to consider every available lawful emergency option.
The attorney has stressed that the family is not asking authorities to ignore immigration law.
They are asking for urgency and compassion during a serious medical crisis involving a child.
The separation has become the emotional centre of Armando’s public updates.
He broke down while discussing the possibility of Hannah undergoing more invasive testing without him there to comfort her.
“I miss my baby girl,” Armando said.
“I don’t want to lose her.”
Kenny later provided a more hopeful update after Hannah underwent her latest procedure.
He said she had come through it very well and thanked supporters for the kindness shown to their family.
Doctors were still working to identify the underlying cause of her condition at the time of the update.
Armando has also shared a video Hannah began recording shortly before the emergency.
The teenager had been excited to make her first “Get Ready With Me” video for the followers she affectionately calls her internet aunties.
She began filming the cheerful makeup video but ran out of time and intended to finish it the following day.
Hannah became ill before she was able to complete it.
Armando shared the unfinished recording to show the joyful and energetic daughter behind the frightening hospital reports.
The video now carries an emotional meaning it was never intended to possess.
It shows an ordinary family moment from shortly before a medical emergency separated a father from his child.
Kenny and Armando became widely known as the first male same-sex couple featured prominently within the 90 Day Fiancé franchise.
Viewers have watched Kenny become another loving parent to Hannah and followed the family as they navigated marriage, geography and immigration.
Those long-running legal complications have now collided with a crisis in which every hour feels important.
Armando is not asking for special permission simply because he is a television personality.
He is asking authorities to examine whether the law provides an emergency path allowing a father to reach his hospitalised daughter.
Until that happens, he remains in Mexico waiting for updates while Kenny holds vigil beside Hannah in Arizona.
The family’s immediate hope is that doctors discover what caused the bleeding and that Hannah continues to recover.
Armando’s second hope is simpler.
He wants to cross the border, take his daughter’s hand and be her father in person rather than through a phone screen.
A staged confrontation at a Portland baseball game ended very differently from the way most fights on the diamond usually unfold.
Instead of exchanging punches, the pitcher and batter grabbed each other and shared a passionate kiss in front of a cheering crowd.
The moment took place during the Portland Pickles’ Heated Riv-Dill-ry Night, a playful tribute to the enormously popular gay sports romance Heated Rivalry.
The collegiate summer baseball organisation held the themed event at Walker Stadium in Portland on July 14 (OUT).
The official promotional schedule listed the evening as Hawkey Night, with the parenthetical subtitle Heated Rivdillry.
The Pickles faced the Willamette Wild Bills during a night otherwise filled with jokes about hockey, rivalries, penalty boxes and imaginary Zambonis.
The most memorable action, however, had nothing to do with the final score.
During a staged sequence, the pitcher struck the batter with the ball.
The batter immediately began walking toward the mound as though an angry confrontation was about to erupt.
The two men moved close enough to appear ready to fight before suddenly embracing and making out on the field.
The stadium crowd erupted as t.A.T.u.’s “All the Things She Said” played over the sound system.
The same song has long been associated with queer pop culture because of its lyrics, music video and complicated history surrounding the Russian duo.
The Portland performance was scripted rather than a spontaneous romantic encounter between two unsuspecting baseball players.
That distinction did little to reduce the crowd’s enthusiasm or the internet’s fascination with the clip.
After the Pickles uploaded the footage to social media, it attracted more than one million views within approximately 12 hours.
The team continued the joke with captions referencing memorable locations and moments from Heated Rivalry.
“Our cottage was packed. Tongues were used. Things got heated,” the Pickles wrote alongside photographs from the event.
One of the men involved was identified as content creator and party organiser J.P. Hardy.
Hardy later joked on Instagram that he could now cross making out on a baseball diamond during a professional game off his personal list.
The spectacle was deliberately silly, but its popularity illustrates the unusual cultural reach of Heated Rivalry.
The romantic drama centres on two male hockey rivals whose fierce competition conceals an intense relationship away from the public eye.
Its success has encouraged wider conversations about sexuality, secrecy and visibility within traditionally masculine sporting environments.
The Portland Pickles transformed those themes into a few seconds of live comedy by replacing the expected baseball fight with an unapologetically gay kiss.
The joke worked because audiences immediately understood the familiar setup.
Baseball players charging the mound normally signals anger, aggression and the possibility of violence.
Turning that aggression into desire playfully challenged the rigid expectations surrounding masculinity in men’s sport.
The kiss was not hidden inside a locker room, whispered about after the game or treated as something shameful.
It happened openly on the field while the audience cheered.
The Pickles are known for unconventional theme nights and an irreverent approach to summer baseball entertainment.
Their 2026 promotional calendar has included events inspired by television, music, dogs, Pride and an assortment of deliberately ridiculous puns.
Heated Riv-Dill-ry Night fit comfortably within that unusual tradition while also speaking directly to queer sports fans.
The team scheduled its official Pride Night two days later, describing the ballpark as a space for LGBTQ+ people, joy and chosen family.
Not everyone online welcomed the staged kiss, and some conservative commentators complained that the moment took place with families and children in attendance.
Supporters responded that children frequently react with embarrassment whenever adults kiss, regardless of the couple’s genders.
The controversy only pushed the video further across social media and introduced even more viewers to the Portland team’s elaborate joke.
For queer fans, the most refreshing part may have been how little tragedy or solemnity the moment contained.
It was not presented as an educational lecture or a brave declaration requiring permission from a straight audience.
It was funny, flirtatious and joyfully excessive.
Representation in sport does not always have to arrive through a carefully worded corporate statement.
Sometimes it can arrive when a batter charges the mound, grabs the pitcher and kisses him while an entire ballpark loses its mind.
