"It has been a long fight full of tears for us."
That is how Ann "Waaddao" Chumaporn describes the years that led to this moment – when hundreds of couples are tying the knot as Thailand legalises same-sex marriage.
And the same question which has been heard throughout the long campaign to get the equal marriage law passed is being asked again: why Thailand? Why nowhere else, aside from Taiwan and Nepal, in Asia?
People think they know the answer. Thailand is famously open to and accepting of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. They have long been visible in all walks of life. Thai people are easy-going about pretty much everything. "Mai pen rai" – no big deal – is a national catch-phrase. Buddhist beliefs, followed by more than 90% of Thais, don't forbid LGBT lifestyles. Surely, then, equal marriage was inevitable.
Except it wasn't. "It was not easy," says Ms Waaddao, who organises Bangkok Pride March.
The first Pride march in Thailand took place only 25 years ago. Back then it was hard to get approval from the police, and the march was a chaotic, unfocused event. After 2006 only two marches took place until 2022. In 2009 one planned Pride march in Chiang Mai had to be abandoned because of the threat of violence.
"We were not accepted, by our own families and by society," Ms Waaddao adds. "There were times when we did not think marriage equality would ever happen, but we never gave up."
For all of Thailand's general tolerance of LGBT people, getting equal rights, including marriage, required a determined campaign to change attitudes in Thai officialdom and society. And attitudes have changed.
When Chakkrit "Ink" Vadhanavira started dating his partner in 2001, they were both actors playing leading roles in TV series. At that time homosexuality was still officially described by the Thai Ministry of Health as a mental illness.