The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will fill the streets and skies of Manhattan on Thursday morning, a century after the tradition first started.

The spectacle debuted in November 1924 as “Macy’s Christmas Parade,” borrowing animals from the Central Park Zoo in an effort to boost holiday sales at its new flagship store.

Three years after that, it introduced its first balloon: Felix the Cat. Exactly 100 years since the parade began, it has ballooned to whole new heights, with a lineup that Macy’s is calling its largest yet.

It will feature more than 30 balloons and 20 floats, 11 marching bands, 10 performance groups and more than 700 clowns — all leading up to the arrival of Santa Claus and the holiday season.

“The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a beloved tradition that marks the beginning of the holiday season for millions of live spectators and viewers across the country,” said Will Coss, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade executive producer, adding that artisans and production experts work year-round to make it happen.

Here’s how to watch and what to expect.

When and where is it?

The parade is slated to run from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Thursday, in all time zones.

The procession begins at 77th street and will make its way down a 2.5-mile stretch, ending outside Macy’s Herald Square store on 34th Street.

How can I watch?

Viewers can watch the parade starting at 8:30 a.m. on NBC and Peacock, as well as an encore telecast at 2 p.m. ET.

It will be hosted by the usual suspects: Today’s Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker, for his 30th year behind the Thanksgiving microphone. NBC has been Macy’s official broadcast partner since 1952.

There will also be a Spanish language simulcast on Telemundo, and a broadcast with additional audio narration (for blind and visually impaired audiences) on the Secondary Audio Program (SAP) channel.

Once the parade ends, there’s no need to scramble for the remote — the National Dog Show, another NBC Thanksgiving staple, begins right at noon.

Who is performing?

In addition to the marching bands and dance troupes, Macy’s boasts a star-studded roster of musical performers for this year’s event, including Jennifer Hudson, Billy Porter and Kylie Minogue.

Other stars set to appear include Jimmy Fallon & The Roots, Ariana Madix, T-Pain, The Temptations, Lea Salonga, Walker Hayes, Charli D’Amelio, Cole Escola and members of this year’s WNBA champions, New York Liberty — featuring their beloved mascot, Ellie the Elephant.

Macy’s is also teasing appearances by two singers known for their portrayal of Elphaba in Wicked: Idina Menzel, who originated the role on Broadway, and Cynthia Erivo, who is starring in the just-released film adaptation.

The parade will also feature performances by the Radio City Rockettes, as well as from several Broadway shows: Death Becomes Her, Hell’s Kitchen and The Outsiders.

Will my favorite floats be there?

The floats and balloons that make up the procession are a mix of new additions and fan favorites.

Minnie Mouse is among the new balloon arrivals and also the tallest, at a towering 60 feet. She joins familiar faces like Beagle Scout Snoopy, Smokey Bear, Ronald McDonald and Spider-Man — who is making his first parade appearance in over a decade.

At ground level, the parade’s 22 floats are composed of hundreds of set pieces and elements. Six of them are new, courtesy of companies including Haribo, Rao’s Homemade and the Bronx Zoo.

A single parade float takes about four months to construct, according to Macy’s. The whole ordeal involves over 2,000 gallons of paint, 300 pounds of glitter, 200 pounds of confetti and 8,000 hours of labor.

What’s next?

While the parade started in 1924, this is actually only its 98th year.

That’s because it was cancelled during three years of World War II, since rubber and other prime parade materials were needed for the war effort.

The 100th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will take place in 2026, and it’s sure to be a bonanza.

As is tradition, we find ourselves once again in the heart of holiday movie season. This year’s installments include everything from a snowman who “comes to life,” shirtless Chad Michael Murray, Jack Black as Satan, and two Donna Kelce cameos. An exhaustive list would be prohibitive for both my editorial resources and your patience, but holiday movies are too dear to too many people to skip an update about what’s shaking in this particular glittery snow globe.

Here, we’ve broken down the highlights of the season, from the heavy-hitters to new franchise installments and goofy titles. There are casting surprises (like stars of The Office), and Hanukkah movies on the way. Many of these TV movies are out as of Thanksgiving, but we’ve noted the premiere dates of those yet to come.

Let’s take a tour through some highlights.

High-profile entries

Every year, a few holiday TV movies poke their heads above the sea of films made for the die-hards — the people who can tell you off the tops of their heads exactly which frequent lead starred opposite Brandon Routh in The Nine Lives of Christmas — and become known to the wider population.

(It was Kimberley Sustad, obviously. She’s not only been a great lead for Hallmark, but she’s now writing for them, too.)

Here are a few that may reach you even if you are not a close follower of this space. They lean toward Netflix, simply because of its size and reach, as well as the fact that Netflix makes fewer movies and makes a bigger deal out of each of them than some of the other providers.

Hot Frosty

Social media may have given you the lowdown on Hot Frosty, which ran for many days at the very top of Netflix’s list of hottest movies. But just in case: Hot Frosty stars Lacey Chabert (of Party of Five, Mean Girls, and roughly 15 prior Christmas movies by my count) and Dustin Milligan (Schitt’s Creek). She plays a woman who puts a magic scarf on a very realistic snowman who comes to life; he plays the “comes to life.” What follows is a very, very silly — but fortunately self-aware — little comedy also starring Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truglio (in a Brooklyn Nine-Nine reunion) as local law enforcement. They are in pursuit of the snowman because they believe him to be a dangerous streaker. That’s right: a dangerous streaker. I mean, he did come to life without pants on.

The Merry Gentlemen

Speaking of coming to life without pants on: I’ve always thought the holiday movie market needs more exotic dancers. Netflix comes through with The Merry Gentlemen, in which Chad Michael Murray (of One Tree Hill) and some other shirtless fellows save Christmas. He meets a woman, played by Britt Robertson, who wants desperately to save her parents’ struggling small music venue, The Rhythm Room (!). She comes up with an idea: a PG-13 all-male revue featuring hot men she happens to know in her personal life. My favorite supporting Merry Gentleman: a local played by Maxwell Caulfield, who looked great in Grease 2 when he was in his early 20s and looks great in this in his 60s. You go, Maxwell Caulfield. Don’t you let them touch your chest hair, either. (This, by the way, is the film that has dethroned Hot Frosty atop the Netflix Top 10 list as of this writing.)

Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story

When Hallmark announced Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (Nov. 30) over the summer, it seemed perfectly clear that its intent was to capitalize on the whole Taylor Swift-and-Travis Kelce thing. And don’t get me wrong: That’s true. (Donna Kelce has a cameo — although hilariously, she also has one in Hallmark’s Christmas on Call, which takes place in Philadelphia. No favoritism for Mama Kelce!) Holiday Touchdown was also made as a partnership with the team, much like Hallmark partnerships that have existed in the past with locations like Dollywood (Christmas at Dollywood), the Plaza Hotel (Christmas at the Plaza) and the Biltmore Estate (A Biltmore Christmas).

But Holiday Touchdown is not directly inspired by the Travis/Taylor story. It’s about a woman (Hunter King) whose family is obsessed with the Kansas City Chiefs, and they’re being considered as part of the team’s Fan Of The Year contest. (…Sure.) She meets a guy (Tyler Hynes) who works for the team and becomes the family’s handler for the contest while also falling for her (an enormous conflict of interest, tssk). There’s a magic hat (sure!), there are many (many many) Kansas City cameos and references, and there is an avalanche of Chiefs branding. This one might be a B for regular Hallmark-ers, but it’s an A for Kansas City locals and anybody who’s ever shared a sports team obsession with people they love.

And here’s the twist! There is a movie that looks directly Travis/Taylor inspired, and it’s over on Lifetime. Called Christmas in the Spotlight, it is about a pop megastar and a football player – he’s just not a Chiefs player. Glad we could clear this up.

Our Little Secret

Lindsay Lohan was very charming in last year’s Falling for Christmas on Netflix; this year, she’s back with Our Little Secret, in which she plays a woman who goes to spend the holidays with the family of her new boyfriend and runs into — dun! — her old boyfriend, who’s dating her new boyfriend’s sister. Kristin Chenoweth has the time of her life as the prospective mother-in-law, and Lindsay Lohan is, yet again, a durably charismatic lead who’s still got her comedy chops.

Franchises and sequels

You may remember 2022’s Three Wise Men and a Baby, starring three of Hallmark’s top leading men — Andrew Walker, Tyler Hynes and Paul Campbell, or as I admit I knew them for a long time while thoroughly enjoying their work, “that one guy,” “that other guy,” and “oh sure that guy.” They were brothers stuck caring for a baby over the holidays. Naturally, we now get the sequel titled Three Wiser Men and a Boy. This is mostly a straight-up family comedy; it’s one of several Hallmark is doing this year that are not really romcoms even if they have romance elements. And, driven by the charm of the three leads, it’s a lot of fun. (These stories are co-written by Campbell and … Kimberley Sustad!)

As a side note, it’s been interesting to see Hallmark lean into the popularity of their male leads, who, for a long time, were treated as largely interchangeable partners for higher-profile actresses. They’re even airing a reality show this year called Finding Mr. Christmas, hosted by Jonathan Bennett, in which men compete for a spot in a Hallmark movie called Happy Howlidays, which will then air on Dec. 21.

Also up: BET+’s Brewster’s Millions: Christmas (Dec. 5), a sequel about the niece of Montgomery Brewster, played by Richard Pryor in the 1985 movie. Perhaps not the sequel we were expecting this year, but hey — long waits before stories get picked up again are the norm at this point.

We should also note a momentous franchise retirement: Between 2018 and 2023, Hallmark made the loosely connected films Time for Me to Come Home for Christmas, Time for You to Come Home for Christmas, Time for Him to Come Home for Christmas, Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas, Time for Them to Come Home for Christmas, and Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas. Perhaps owing to their exhaustion of the most familiar personal pronouns, they have seemingly completed this series.

What is that title?

Sometimes, the most enjoyable part of previewing holiday movies is looking ahead to the titles that will quite understandably make you wonder whether you are hallucinating — and then assuring you that you are not. Here are some of my favorite titles of 2024.

A Very Merry Beauty Salon (Lifetime, Dec. 7)

Tia Mowry plays a salon owner who is preparing for a charity ball, and she meets a dashing wine CEO, and what’s not to like about that?

The Holiday Junkie (Lifetime, Dec. 14)

Jennifer Love Hewitt co-wrote, directed and stars in this story about a woman who works with her mother as a decorator with a special fondness for Christmas. After her mom dies, she meets a Grinchy man who can perhaps help her deal with grief and also kissing.

A ’90s Christmas (Hallmark, Nov. 29)

I am deeply wounded by the suggestion that the ’90s are ready for their nostalgia run (I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me how the math plays out), but here we are. This one is about a woman who seemingly goes back to 1999 with the help of … an enchanted Uber? (The description says “a mysterious rideshare experience.” I think that means “enchanted Uber.”)

Fun with casting

Confessions of a Christmas Letter (Hallmark) is about a mom played by Angela Kinsey (of The Office) who loves her family very much but struggles with her desire to write a competitively braggy Christmas letter about them. Her ultimate goal? To impress the man at the post office who keeps a “Hall of Fame” of Christmas letters. He is played by Brian Baumgartner (who played Kevin on The Office). So she hires a novelist to spend two weeks writing one for her (uh, I am AVAILABLE FOR THIS GIG). While sparks do fly between said novelist and her daughter, this movie is mostly about this woman’s efforts to accept her imperfect family Christmas as the one that’s perfect for them.

Holiday Mismatch (Hallmark) features two moms who don’t get along, who accidentally set up their adult children and then have to try to get them to break up. The moms are played by Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea, who spent years playing the two aunts on Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

Something quite different: Jack Black’s holiday movie highlight up to this point might be, well, The Holiday. But this season, on Paramount+, in Dear Santa, he shows up as Satan (yep), after a kid’s misspelling accidentally summons the wrong higher power at Christmas. Also around for this one: Keegan-Michael Key and Post Malone. In some ways, it’s mostly surprising that Jack Black hasn’t played Satan before now.

What about Hanukkah?

When the big purveyors of holiday movies do Hanukkah, the results can be mixed, to say the least. BUT. Hallmark made an excellent Hanukkah one last year called Round and Round, so I have higher hopes for these entries than I used to. This year, Hallmark has two. One, called Leah’s Perfect Gift (Dec. 8), is about a Jewish woman who loves Christmas (though she doesn’t celebrate it) and welcomes the chance to participate with her boyfriend’s family, only to find things are more complicated than they might seem. It sounds like a tough premise to get perfectly right, but also maybe like a chance for some interesting storytelling.

More straightforward-sounding is Hanukkah on the Rocks (Dec. 13), in which a corporate lawyer ends up bartending for “quirky regulars” at a Chicago bar, goes on a quest for Hanukkah candles, and that’s about the size of that.

Also of note

Most Hallmark Christmas movies have until very recently had a pretty consistent soft-rom-com tone, but it feels like they’re starting to branch out a little. I enjoyed The Christmas Charade, which is about a woman who gets wrapped up in a spy operation. It reminded me of ’80s shows I adored like Remington Steele, where beautiful and well-dressed people have adventures while flirting. More of this, say I!

The 5-Year Christmas Party (Hallmark) floats on the outstanding chemistry between Katie Findlay and Jordan Fisher, who play old friends who keep being tempted to make out all the time. It’s lovely and quite funny, and while I was watching this one, I had the thought: “It’s nice that women characters in Hallmark movies are sometimes allowed to have short hair now.”

To say that Hallmark has a sketchy relationship with diversity is an understatement, but I liked Christmas with the Singhs, which tries to engage with difference in a more straightforward way than their past TV movies. This one is about what it’s like to try to manage families with different holiday traditions when they’re joined by marriage.

As a person with a long history of watching The Amazing Race, I had a great time with Jingle Bell Run (Hallmark), which follows two people thrown together on a team for what amounts to a Christmas-themed Amazing Race. Obviously they fall in love, and it’s super-charming. It stars Ashley Williams and Andrew Walker, who are two of the bigger stars in the Hallmark firmament, and it even gently acknowledges once or twice that they’re getting older, which is very welcome. (I mean, it happens.)

If you like Finland, or dogs, perhaps you’re up for The Finnish Line (Hallmark, Dec. 1), which is about dogsledding. As a person who has parasocial relationships with many internet dogs, including some sled dogs, this spoke to me personally. (Although I don’t think its grasp on the realities of mushing is terribly firm.)

So grab a blanket, grab your cocoa, grab a snuggly person or pet or just your warmest sweater, and enjoy some of the standard and not-so-standard offerings of the holiday season.

In May 2023, Adam Vasquez and Trino Garcia walked across a bridge overlooking the 110 Freeway, right next to Sycamore Grove Park, feeling nervous and a little shy. It was their first time being photographed as a couple, holding hands and sharing a kiss in public.

Henry Jiménez Kerbox, a photographer with more than 7 million followers on TikTok, had seen them and asked to take their picture. Little did they imagine that the impromptu photo shoot would go viral, their tender moment resonating with millions on TikTok and Instagram. Now, people know the couple as TrinoxAdam.

On the side of Garcia’s face, “Adam” is inked on the right and “Mexicano” on the left. Vasquez’s face mirrors this, with “Trino” on the left and “Chicano” on the right. As Garcia rolls up the loose, baggy sleeves of his jersey, he reveals a tender tribute to his childhood, family and God — etched into his skin is Charlie Brown, the face of his daughter Natalie when she was a baby and a portrait of the Virgin Mary.

With their tattooed faces, piercings and street-style clothing, Garcia, 39, and Vasquez, 44, don’t exactly fit the stereotypical image of social media influencers. But with more than 2 million followers on TikTok, they’re breaking barriers and challenging perceptions of masculinity, sexuality and Chicano culture. Here, the couple, who live in Van Nuys, share the story of their journey from closeted teens to beloved internet personalities.

An instant crush — and a soul connection

Nearly two decades ago, in Bakersfield‘s Central Valley, Garcia, then 20, spotted a photo of Vasquez in a friend’s work locker and was instantly smitten. It took him a month to finally spot Vasquez’s contact information on a friend’s phone at a party. “I have a really bad memory, but that day, I remember it,” Garcia says. He borrowed a pen and wrote the number down on his hand. The next day, he called Vasquez.

Before he met Garcia, everyone Vasquez hung out with was dealing with drugs in some way. Vasquez himself was addicted to crystal meth, which he’d begun using when he was 12. But when the two went on their first date, to a Del Taco, Vasquez says he saw in Garcia a lifeline to normalcy: “Everyone I associated with always did what I did. So I never had that outlet to escape that.”

On a later date, they’d planned to see a movie, but Vasquez’s body started to ache and shake due to withdrawal.

“I told him, ‘I can’t go inside,’” Vasquez says. “So he took me back to my place. I went beneath the table and made myself feel better.” As he continued using, Garcia waited “and stood by my side.”

In Vasquez, Garcia recognized a kindred spirit yearning for acceptance. Garcia had struggled himself, as a single dad to baby Natalie and in not being accepted by his family after coming out. “I was drowning,” says Garcia. “He was struggling with his own struggles, and it made me feel really connected with him.”

After a month of dating, they moved in together. Vasquez continued to battle his addiction; Garcia would catch him using drugs under the table or find drugs in his pockets. But the two stuck it out. For Vasquez, Garcia and Natalie were part of the motivation to stop using. “I had our daughter that I wanted to be better for,” he says.

Vasquez has now been drug-free for more than a decade, and this year marks the couple’s 19th anniversary. On Nov. 30, they plan to get married in downtown L.A. at Scam and Jam, a monthly throwback dance party and celebration of Chicano culture hosted at the Regent Theater. At the first-ever Scam and Jam wedding, Vasquez says the couple hope people will “just dance and vibe together to share this special moment.”

“It’s an honor to find somebody that you’re with for so long,” Vasquez says. “There are so many levels to us at this point: We are friends, we are lovers, we are homies, and most importantly, we are fathers.”

A family forged in love

When Vasquez entered Garcia’s life, Garcia’s daughter was just 2 years old. Raising Natalie as a gay couple in Bakersfield came with its own set of challenges.

When they went to parent meetings at Natalie’s school, Vasquez was always the “uncle,” because they didn’t want their daughter to have unnecessary attention or trouble. Once, a mother of Natalie’s elementary school classmate confronted Garcia, saying she thought Natalie should go to counseling because she was missing a mother in her life. Garcia was offended, but he also felt fear: “What if we did something wrong?” he would ask himself. He also worried Natalie might reject them, as other family members had done, for “a normal life.”

“I’m never ashamed of them,” says Natalie, now 21, though she has noticed the judgments of others due to her fathers’ appearance. For instance, when she went shopping with Garcia and Vasquez, people would follow them to make sure her dads weren’t stealing anything, she says. The stereotyping bothers her, but in school, “People actually found it really interesting and cool” that she had two dads. (She calls Garcia Papi and Vasquez Pops.)

“[Queerness] has been something normal in my life,” she says. Growing up, she was surrounded by Garcia and Vasquez’s friends and would go to Pride parades with them, holding a little rainbow flag. “I never felt I was missing out on something. I always felt content having my two dads, because they were just so involved in my life.”

“We raised her as two parents,” Vasquez says. “Trino was there with her to get her nails and hair done. I would work hard to make sure she had everything she needed.”

They also encouraged her passion for dance. When Natalie was a baby, Garcia would record her moving to music; later, he took her to dance classes.

Adam Vasquez and Trino Garcia dance alongside rapper Snow Tha Product at Beaches WeHo in West Hollywood.

“I wanted her to see life the way I didn’t see it,” he says. “I wanted her to dream big and express herself.”

That involved some sacrifices. Eight years ago, with just $3,000 in their pockets, the family moved to L.A. from Bakersfield so Natalie could get better opportunities in dance. Their first apartment, in Rowland Heights, cost $1,600 monthly. Vasquez, who was working at both Red Robin and Chili’s, transferred to the Whittier locations so he could have a better commute.

“I became one of the best servers at Red Robin and Chili’s,” he says.

Garcia, after taking Natalie to dance classes, would stay late to clean the studios to cover her tuition. He asked Natalie to join him. “I’d be like, ‘You’re working for your dance, so put pride in it,’” he says. “And we cleaned it together.”

Their dedication paid off — Natalie is now in her second season as a dancer for the L.A. Clippers. She also recently introduced her first boyfriend to her dads, who “have always been a big support system,” she says. “They were willing to drop everything they had in Bakersfield to come over to L.A. [for me to] pursue what I really want to do.”

The journey to self-acceptance

Growing up as the only sons in their Catholic families, Vasquez and Garcia both felt the weight of cultural expectations and religious beliefs.

Brenda Garcia, Trino’s second eldest sister, was the only one in his family who initially accepted his queerness. She said he was “quiet,” “sensitive” and “a sweetheart” as a kid. When their father saw Garcia was attracted to the “girls’ stuff” of his four sisters, he put him on baseball and basketball teams to make him act more like a “boy,” she says.

“Those kids were my brother’s bullies,” Brenda Garcia says. “He is just not a sporty guy, and I could feel so much pressure on him.”

In fourth grade, Garcia went to church to confess to the priest that he found himself attracted to other boys. The priest told him to pray, so he kept praying. As he got older, to be the tough Chicano man that his father wanted him to be, Garcia intentionally had “become bad,” says Brenda Garcia. He fought with other kids, had lots of girlfriends and started to smoke.

Throughout it all, “[my attraction to men] didn’t go away,” he says. “It wasn’t until my daughter was born that the reality told me I need to wake up” and accept who he was. It was then, at age 20, that he came out and left Oxnard for Bakersfield.

Adam Vasquez, left, and Trino Garcia have a sip while talking to each other outside of a friend’s house in Compton.

With three sisters, Vasquez also was the only boy in his family. His father left the family for another woman when Vasquez was little. “He had a baby with her and called that son the ‘junior,’ but I was his first boy,” he says. “There was a lot of anger and emptiness, so I turned to drugs to fill up the void.”

Baptized as a Catholic, Vasquez now identifies as Christian. He said he found it hard to pray when he realized his sexual orientation and that he got into drugs as he felt he had turned his back on God.

Vasquez says in many Hispanic families, having a gay son can be the worst shame, especially as the only son in a Catholic family. When he told his mother he was gay, her initial reaction was devastating: “I don’t have a son anymore.” He moved out that same day.

“I’ve been told this is wrong, but I’ve never been so happy in my life,” Vasquez says. “Why [is] loving this man going to send me to hell?”

Redefining masculinity

In a world that often equates gayness with flamboyance, Vasquez and Garcia stand out. Their appearance — tattoos, baggy clothes and a style rooted in Chicano culture — might challenge stereotypes about what it means to be gay.

But beneath the tough exterior lie hearts filled with love and a desire for acceptance. Their tattoos, far from being gang-related, depict flowers, butterflies and words like “love” and the name of their daughter. This juxtaposition of traditional masculinity and open vulnerability is at the core of their appeal. They’re showing a generation of young men that there’s no one way to be gay, no one way to be a man.

Their viral moment in 2023 catapulted them into the spotlight in a way they never expected. On the June day the video was posted, Vasquez was working at Chili’s. His notifications “just went crazy” with people sending likes and following the couple. Later that month, they went to L.A. Pride, and, for the first time, people started to line up and take pictures with them.

Trino Garcia during L.A. Pride at Los Angeles State Historic Park in June.

The attention has led to a sense of freedom for the couple.

Now, on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, they perform lip-sync music videos, share their outfits and post daily life or travel vlogs. They’re using their platform to challenge stereotypes and promote acceptance, particularly within the Chicano community.

“We’re being transparent, and we’re not hiding in the closet anymore,” Vasquez says. “We’re going outside, going to places where we shouldn’t be embraced. But people are finding the love in us. Because we could be their uncle. We could be their son.”

During this interview at a Starbucks in Van Nuys, a young girl approached, her eyes wide with recognition. “Are you Trino and Adam?” she asks, her voice trembling with excitement.

Without hesitation, the couple stood up, their faces breaking into warm smiles. They embraced the girl and her mother, taking time to chat and pose for photos.

Their message resonates beyond the LGBTQ+ community. They’ve been welcomed at lowrider shows and spoken at prisons, breaking down barriers and fostering understanding.

“Maybe you don’t agree with it,” Vasquez says, “but there’s someone we’re touching, someone that looks like us, someone that’s been hiding all their lives.”

From TikTok, a new chapter

Today, Vasquez and Garcia balance their social media presence with their day jobs as community integration facilitators at the organization Social Vocational Services, working with individuals with developmental disabilities and taking them on recreational activities.

“Living in the social media world can make you lose yourself fast,” says Garcia. “The bigger the numbers get, you feel like you’re floating, but when we go to work, clock in and [are] with all these people, it makes us grateful for where we’re at in life. I want to continue to be grounded.”

Adam Vasquez, left, and Trino Garcia dance while filming a TikTok and singing along to the Usher song “Burn.”

Their plan is not to be influencers, forever known as “the guys on the bridge,” he adds, but to use their social media presence to “speak about something powerful.” They’re also planning on writing a book about their love story and where they came from.

In October, the couple released their first original rap song, “Vibe Out”; Natalie dances in the music video. “Adam is rapping a lot in this piece,” Garcia says, looking at Vasquez proudly. “I think he’s a natural, and I’m a No. 1 fan.”

‘People have been embracing us’

For the most part, they’ve found public reaction heartwarming and encouraging. But getting full acceptance from their families may be a lifelong journey. For Garcia in particular, it’s bittersweet: “The people that I wanted to see me is my mother, my father and my sisters, and they still don’t see me.”

His sister Brenda Garcia, however, continues to be a supportive force in his life. When her youngest daughter asked her about Garcia and Vasquez’s relationship, “I just told her, ‘Gay does not affect who you are. It’s just love. Is that going to make you change the way you see your uncle?’ And she said no.”

Although she initially rejected him, Vasquez’s mother, Lupe, is proud of the men Vasquez and Garcia have become and the life they’ve built together. “No matter what, he’s my son, and I love him dearly,” she says.

For their Nov. 30 nuptials, Garcia and Vasquez have invited about 20 family members and friends from their personal circle. “People have been embracing us,” Garcia says. “And we want to celebrate with the people that have been healing us.”

Following a short ceremony onstage, several DJs will play at the “club-vibe party with music,” the couple says. Tickets are available to the public via Ticketmaster, and the event will be livestreamed on TikTok.

Along with the wedding, there’s another milestone in the works: After Nov. 30, Vasquez will be Adam Issac Vasquez Garcia, “so that the three of us can be Garcia,” he says.

“We’re like a beautiful plant that grows slowly and blooms more beautifully,” Garcia says of their relationship. “We were like two broken pieces,” Vasquez adds, “and coming together we became a full, complete person.”