Queer dance floors had long been a constant in the lives of Alistair William Stephenson and John William Fust IV. So it was fitting that they met on one at Honcho Campout, an annual queer music festival in Artemas, Pa.
On Aug. 16, 2024, Fust, who goes by Jackson, was “practicing being alone,” he said, following the end of a nine-year relationship. “So, I was alone on the dance floor and really loving it.”
Stephenson took notice of Fust, but he didn’t approach him. “There was something about his powerful dance floor aura,” Stephenson said. “I just couldn’t.”
Later that evening, the two chatted but didn’t exchange numbers. A few months later, however, a friend invited Fust to a birthday party for someone named Alistair. Fust remembered thinking, “There can’t be that many gay guys in Brooklyn named Alistair.”
So, he went to the party on Nov. 9, 2024, at All Night Skate in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, and quickly ran into Stephenson.
“He was so friendly and nice and excited,” Fust said.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
Stephenson remembered saying to his close friend Koby Moreno, “my Honcho crush is here,” referring to Fust. That’s when Moreno said the guy he was going on dates with recently was there too, also referring to Fust.
“I was privately a little crushed,” Stephenson said. “But I immediately stepped back and said, ‘Go have fun, Koby.’”
But by Thanksgiving 2024, Fust and Moreno had broken up. So, when Fust and Stephenson bumped into one another on the dance floor the following month at Public Records in Brooklyn, they exchanged Instagram handles.
Stephenson asked Moreno if it was OK if he went out with Fust and, “Koby was like, ‘Go for it,’” Stephenson said.
Then, on New Year’s Day 2025, back at Public Records once again, Stephenson and Fust ran into each other yet again on the dance floor. That night, they shared a first kiss. “I felt overwhelmed by that kiss,” Fust said. “I haven’t ever felt like that.”
Stephenson said, “I was euphoric.”
Fust asked if they could finally hang out somewhere that was not a dance floor. Stephenson said yes.
Stephenson, 36, was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. He is the chief strategy and impact officer at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a nationwide advocacy organization based in New York. He received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a law degree from the University of Sydney.
Fust, also 36, was born and raised in Stuarts Draft, Va. He is a senior merchandising manager of kitchen and tabletop at Quince, the lifestyle brand. He received a bachelor’s degree in American politics from the University of Virginia.
Their first official date was on Jan. 4, 2025. They went to Rialto Grande for a drink, Gueros Brooklyn for tacos, and then Fust’s apartment, all in Crown Heights. “We talked a great deal about friendship,” Stephenson said. “I think we both quickly recognized that we’d built unusually close, diverse communities around us and treated friendship as a serious commitment rather than a secondary part of life.”
Fust added that “it felt like a really good first date.” So much so that he recalled thinking, “There goes my plan to just be single for a while.”
Eleven days later, they went to Locanda Vini & Olii for dinner and then to Stephenson’s apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant to watch a movie. A third date soon followed at Fust’s apartment. “I brought flowers,” Stephenson said. “He cooked me short ribs.” Four months later, they became official.
In May of 2025, Fust and Stephenson moved in together in Crown Heights.
Instead of a formal proposal, a conversation on the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn that August marked the beginning of their engagement. “Neither of us can remember the exact wording or even which person said it first,” Stephenson said.
The couple married on July 23 at the “wedding garden” across the street from the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Chi Ossé, a friend of Stephenson’s and a member of the New York City Council representing District 36, who received a one-day marriage officiant license, officiated.
Ahead of their legal wedding, the couple hosted a celebratory event for 45 guests on July 11 at St. Joseph’s University in Clinton Hill, with a ceremony also led by Councilman Ossé, followed by a reception at Dinner Party, a restaurant also in Clinton Hill. An after party at Rialto Grande, where they had their first date, was attended by 70 guests.
When the couple went thrifting for vintage wedding suits at Ebreo Vintage in Williamsburg, for their celebratory wedding, Zendaya and her stylist Law Roach walked in. “When I put on the fourth suit I was trying, Zendaya looked me up and down and said, ‘That’s the one.’ I bought it, of course,” Stephenson said. (It was by Nicky Hilton for Saks Fifth Avenue. Fust wore Repubblica di Genova from the same shop.) “We now joke that our marriage has been blessed by Zendaya.”