The question “Will you marry me?” is typically reserved for a romantic partner. But for three men living in Berlin, the question was asked to two best friends — and the answer was always going to be yes.
Santeri Lehtonen, Karam Nwilati, and Kristian Naydenov are preparing to exchange vows in what they’re calling a “friendship wedding,” a non-legally binding ceremony that celebrates a bond they say runs deeper than anything conventional society has taught men to expect. The engagement video, posted by Nwilati, has racked up over 480,000 likes and sparked a conversation about what friendship actually means — and why men rarely get to celebrate it out loud.
The Proposal on a Slovenian Hillside
Picture this: a quiet hillside in Slovenia, a nervous 32-year-old content creator on his knees, and an engagement ring box containing not one, but three rings. That was the moment Karam Nwilati asked his two closest friends — Kristian Naydenov, 29, and Santeri Lehtonen, 36 — to become his platonic life partners.
The proposal came during a bikepacking trip through the Slovenian countryside, a trip that would alter the trajectory of their friendship forever. For Naydenov and Lehtonen, the answer was never in doubt. They had already been building something extraordinary together, a shared life that began during the Covid-19 lockdown and has stretched across four and a half years of cohabitation in Berlin.
It was, by all accounts, a moment heavy with gravity. Naydenov recalls the shock vividly. “It feels like your reality is breaking apart,” he says. “It feels like something you should only have with a very specific person in your life. It reminded me that I’m living such an unconventional life.”
The three are now planning their ceremony for October, gathering their nearest and dearest on the rooftop of their Berlin apartment to mark the occasion with a celebration that is entirely symbolic — but deeply meaningful.
Breaking the Code of Masculine Friendship
There is something quietly radical about what these three men are doing, and it has everything to do with the unspoken rules that govern male relationships. For decades, men have been encouraged to bond through group activities, shared hobbies, and the ever-reliable fist bump. Deep, one-on-one emotional intimacy? That has rarely been part of the blueprint.
Lehtonen, a sustainability consultant and activist, has thought long and hard about this. “There’s a lot of masculine posturing involved,” he reflects. “There was a lot of ‘Who’s the man’ and basic male behaviors that didn’t always feel awesome.” He describes the friendship as his central support system, one that has given him something he didn’t know he was missing. “I feel like I could call them on the rainiest day on the planet, and even if they’re 20 kilometres away, they would be there to help me with something heavy or to be a shoulder to cry on.”
Nwilati puts it even more bluntly. “I’ve just seen the alternative [types of friendships], and I think, ‘No thank you.’ It comes down to the emotional intimacy that we have with each other. Once you see it and once you experience it, like, there is no other option.”
Their bond challenges a cultural assumption that has gone largely unchallenged: that cohabiting with friends in your twenties and thirties is merely a waiting room until a romantic partner arrives. For this trio, it is not a placeholder — it is the main event. In his proposal, Nwilati thanked his friends for being his safe space and home. “I love you… We’re such a beautiful unit. We’re building such an intentional life together,” he said. Those words carry a weight that conventional masculine friendships rarely allow.
Redefining What Partnership Looks Like
One of the most fascinating aspects of this arrangement is how it reshapes the men’s approach to romance — rather than replacing it. Lehtonen is the only member of the trio currently in a romantic relationship. He identifies as bi-curious, while Nwilati and Naydenov are heterosexual. Their friendship, they stress, is strictly platonic, and it does not seek to replicate what a romantic partnership offers.
“We’re not exploring sexual intimacy in these relationships,” Nwilati acknowledges. But he argues that the emotional foundation they have built actually makes them better equipped for romantic connections. “In society, a romantic partner is painted as someone who should be your best friend and your therapist, and everything in between,” he explains. “Having these relationships takes off a lot of pressure and creates a healthier base to stand on because I’m not looking for someone to fill a hole — you can meet them for who they are and build on that.”
It is a reframing that has real implications. Rather than placing the burden of all emotional needs on a single partner, the trio has distributed that responsibility across a web of deep, intentional relationships. The result, they say, is a healthier, more sustainable approach to love in all its forms.
Family, Skeptics, and the Road Ahead
Not everyone has welcomed the news with open arms. Naydenov says his mother had plenty of questions when he broke the news. “She was definitely questioning it because she’s, like, ‘So, what kind of obligations are you now tied to? What kind of promise do you have to make to each other, like with the traditional sense of the word, “marriage?”‘” He responded by reframing the occasion for what it truly was: “I said, well, we’re celebrating five years of friendship and celebrating that we’re living in this house together.”
Lehtonen was apprehensive about telling his parents, but the reaction surprised him. Nwilati, meanwhile, has yet to come forward to his family at all. The trio is prepared for the spectrum of responses — some supportive, some bewildered, some outright hostile. The online reaction to the engagement video has reflected exactly that divide, with comments ranging from heartfelt praise to outright vitriol.
Looking further ahead, the three friends have a vision that stretches well beyond a single ceremony. Their long-term ambition is to relocate to a remote home in the countryside and build a community there. “We would love to eventually live as a six: our romantic partners and us,” Lehtonen says. “In my dream situation, we each have romantic partners. It’s a both/and situation.”
For the wedding itself, they are drawing on their diverse heritages to craft something truly unique, incorporating elements from Arab, Greek, and Finnish ceremonies as a tribute to their backgrounds. There may even be veils — Nwilati floated the idea to his friend-fiancées, who responded with laughter and the kind of easy camaraderie that has always defined their bond. “And you can reach back out to us after the divorce,” he added, winking at the camera.
Why it Matters
What these three men are doing may look unconventional, but the underlying message is profoundly simple: friendships deserve the same intentionality, celebration, and commitment that we so freely give to romantic partnerships. In a world grappling with what researchers have called a male loneliness epidemic — defined by shrinking social circles, declining emotional literacy among men, and a crisis of isolation — the trio’s public declaration feels less like a novelty and more like a corrective. They are proving that deep platonic love is not a lesser love, and that the courage to express it openly takes far more strength than the alternative of silence and distance. Their rooftop ceremony in Berlin this October will be a small event in the grand scheme of things, but the conversation it has already ignited about how men love, how men connect, and how society fails to honour male friendship? That is something worth paying attention to.