Emily Millar, 35, and Takahiro Muramatsu, 44, met at a party in 2009. They live with their son in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan

When Takahiro first spotted Emily at a birthday party in 2009, she was carrying a distinctive pink camera. “I’d never seen one before, so I went up and asked her about it. I was looking for an opportunity to speak to her,” he says. But when he told her his name, her reaction wasn’t quite what he expected. “I was shocked because he had the same name as my previous boyfriend, who was killed in a car crash a few months earlier,” Emily says. Though she had only dated him for a short period, she was devastated by his death. “He was very young and it was all over the news, so it had been quite a hard time for me.” Though she didn’t believe in fate, she says the chances of meeting two people with the same name “felt spooky”.

At the party they chatted about their interest in photography, before she invited him to see her band play the following night. It wasn’t until a week later that she told Takahiro about her previous boyfriend. “I suddenly understood why her expression went a bit funny,” he explains. “It all made sense.”