West Hollywood gay weddings 'so joyful,' they'll continue Tuesday

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Jaime Ferrar, 54, left and Richard Sage, 52 of North Hollywood share a kiss inside The Abbey Food & Bar in West Hollywood, where a reception was being held for them and all the other gay couples who got married in the nearby auto court outside the West Hollywood City Council Chambers. They have been together for 31 years. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

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Andrea Taylor, left, and Sallee Taylor join hands during their wedding ceremony conducted by Abbe Land, foreground, the mayor of West Hollywood, in the auto court outside the West Hollywood City Council Chambers in West Hollywood. At right is Sallee’s daughter Grace Meier, 15. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

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Rocco, a Chihuahua/dachshund mix, is all dressed up for the occasion while serving as best man during the wedding ceremony for his owners Ian Holloway, 34, and Felipe Osorno, 32, of Woodland Hills at the auto court outside the West Hollywood City Council Chambers. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

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Media swarm the wedding ceremony for Paul Mejia, 78, left, and David Barney, 70, one of many held for gay couples at the auto court outside the West Hollywood City Council Chambers. They have been together for 43 years. At left, serving as a witness, is Olivia Walker, a West Hollywood city employee. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

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Newly married Devon MacIver, 30, left, and Jordan Finley, 33, arrive as Deirdre McCready, 36, in long gown and Nicki Berthlelson, 25, leave The Abbey Food & Bar in West Hollywood where a reception was held for gay couples who got married in the auto court outside the West Hollywood City Council Chambers. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

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Consueella Rouse-Tennison marries Tammy Tennison-Rouse, at the Norwalk county registrar’s office on the first day of business after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and essentially void Proposition 8.

(Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)

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Chauntel Martin and Dana Moore-Martin wait with other couples to be wed at the Norwalk county registrar’s office on the first day of business after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and essentially void Proposition 8.

(Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)

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Connie Wilson plays with her son, Aidyn, while waiting to fill out paperwork for her to marry her domestic partner, Aimee Wilson. Couples lined up at the Norwalk county registrar’s office on the first day of business after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and essentially void Proposition 8.

(Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)

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Shana Krochmal, left, and Jessica Maxwell leave the Beverly Hills Courthouse after picking up their marriage license on Monday. (Christina House / For the Times)

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Henry Dennis, left, marries his daughter Nikki Dennis-Whitcomb, right, to her partner Kelli Dennis-Whitcomb as Nikki’s mother Margaret Dennis, back, proudly looks on at a park across the street from the Beverly Hills Courthouse immediately after the couple received their marriage license on Monday. Nikki and Kelli combined their last names last year when they filed for a domestic partnership. (Christina House / For the Times)

By Hailey Branson-Potts and Emily Foxhall

July 2, 2013 8:15 AM PT

The city of West Hollywood will again conduct wedding ceremonies in City Council chambers Tuesday because of demand from same-sex couples.

The city said in a news release that Monday’s wedding ceremonies were “so joyful” that they will continue on a first-come, first-served basis from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Couples must first obtain a marriage license from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder. The nearest office to West Hollywood is in Beverly Hills. West Hollywood will continue waiving the civil ceremony fee.

Ceremonies will also be conducted on the 4th of July at Kings Road Park from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. by appointment only. The city will continue offering civil ceremonies every Thursday indefinitely by appointments that must be made at the Beverly Hills Courthouse.

On Monday, Los Angeles County issued a total of 621 marriage licenses countywide and conducted more than 100 civil ceremonies at county offices in Norwalk, according to the registrar-recorder’s office.

Lee Conger, 56, and John Wingler, 66, of Silver Lake, said they “dallied” when gay marriage was briefly legal in the state in 2008. So when they heard the news Friday afternoon that same-sex weddings could resume weeks before anyone anticipated, “we freaked out and realized we’d better get ourselves down” to the courthouse, Conger said.

When they arrived at the registrar-recorder’s office at 7:20 a.m. Monday, it was “like a party,” Wingler said, with other couples showing up with the same sense of hope and urgency. Standing in line together, listening to everyone else’s stories, was “heartwarming and encouraging,” Conger said.

Rey Ramos, 43, and Rob Larsen, 53, headed from Pasadena to the Beverly Hills courthouse to get their license. In line, they met a rabbi who offered to marry them on the spot.

“All of these years of marching in the street and writing to Assembly people — it’s finally done,” said Larsen, a retired California Highway Patrol officer.

In West Hollywood, road signs along Santa Monica and Robertson boulevards directed drivers to “wedding parking.” City staffers set up awnings and tested wedding music over loudspeakers, and City Council members were deputized to officiate marriages by county Recorder-Registrar Dean Logan.

When Northridge residents Pat Joyce and Anne Morrison arrived in West Hollywood early Monday, Morrison clutched the yellow folder containing the wedding license they had just obtained from the registrar-recorder branch in Beverly Hills.

The couple has been together for 26 years. “It was a long engagement,” said Morrison, 61, a retired teacher.

“We talked about marriage many times,” said Joyce, 60, who works on the support staff at UCLA.

The couple said they didn’t think they’d ever see legal gay marriage. “Not in our lifetime,” Joyce said.

They began planning to wed in 2008, but were unable to have a ceremony before Proposition 8 passed. They became domestic partners instead.

“We thought we had time,” Joyce said. “We were too late.”

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