Dancing with the Stars judge Arthur Gourounlian and hubby Brian Dowling recalled their courtship to Ryan Tubridy on Friday's Late Late Show Valentine special.
Big Brother winner Brian told about the night they first encountered each other. "We met in 2002. I was on a show called SMTV Live CD UK. I taped an episode so I could go out on a Friday night in Soho in London, with my best friend Simon.
"And I saw this guy, very handsome, dancing. And I approached him. I was suave, I was drinking a Smirnoff Ice with a straw . . . And I approached him, but he couldn’t speak English!
"So I trotted back to my friend, and said 'It’s such a shame, he can’t speak English’, and he said ‘Do you care?’ And I thought that was a good point!
"But then, funnily enough, Arthur was dancing on the show I was hosting the following week."
Arthur had a slightly different version of their first meeting, and told Ryan: "I asked him ‘What do you?’ ‘I’m in PR’ and he never told me about being a presenter.
"And then the week after I was dancing on CD UK, and I remember, I was in the canteen, talking about how I’d seen this guy, he was so cute, and then I see Brian Dowling walk past, and I say, ‘Oh my god, that’s him. That’s Brian!’
Trying not to laugh, he added: "But he was so ignorant, he just walked past me!"
A grinning Ryan noted that their relationship "could have been dead then" and Brian agreed.
"It could," he said. "But then we dated for four years, and then we broke up in 2006 for five long years . . ."
Then, in 2011, things changed. Arthur recalled: "We’d stayed friends", but after a dinner together, Arthur asked Brian to go on a proper date. As Arthur noted, "Brian said ‘I’ll think about it’ and then said ‘Why not?’"
And that was it. As Arthur put it: "then you put the pressure on me to get married." At this stage they’d known each other for over a decade.
"It was 2014," he added. "I knew I had to ask him, as he would never ask me."
After a complicated proposal, Brian said: "Yes, I’ll marry you."
Their wedding took place in Powerscourt in 2015. And the key to their happiness? "I’m a realist," Brian explained. "And Arthur’s super-positive. It’s a bit like living with Mickey Mouse, living in Disneyland."
