There were yellow roses, champagne toasts and tiered white-frosted cakes to celebrate the District's first same-sex marriages Tuesday morning.
In a joint ceremony at the downtown headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign, three of the first gay couples to marry under the city's new law said their vows and exchanged rings in services that underscored the historic significance of the day.
"Today the love that you have recognized all along is recognized by the District of Columbia," the Rev. Dwayne Johnson of the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington said as he declared Darlene Garner and Candy Holmes of Laurel "legally married."
With the issuing of the first marriage licenses to same-sex couples Tuesday, the District follows five states -- from Iowa to Massachusetts -- in allowing gay couples to marry. Same-sex couples were first able to apply for licenses in the District last Wednesday but, like all couples, had to follow the city's three-day waiting period before getting hitched.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), who signed legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in December, congratulated the newlyweds after their services, saying that the weddings "were a great step forward for equality and for our city that has always been a standard bearer for treating people equally and justly."
Council members David A. Catania (I-At Large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who are gay, were among the more than 100 guests who watched the three services at the HRC headquarters on Rhode Island Avenue NW.
Catania, the leading sponsor of the legislation, stood with the couples and called the moment "the most profoundly rewarding day. . . . I could not be prouder of this city."
At the D.C. Superior Court, about 15 couples arrived in the first hour Tuesday morning to pick up their licenses. As soon as the first two couples had their certificates in hand, they ran out of the marriage bureau and headed off to become the first to marry under the new law.
Dressed in matching black tuxedos, Jeremy Moon and his fiance, Bryan Legaspi, rushed to the fifth floor to Judge Brook Hedge's courtroom.
Hedge, a friend of the couple's, performed the private ceremony in front of her staff. Within 15 minutes, Hedge pronounced them legally married. The couple, together for nearly seven years, then rushed out of the courtroom to officially file their license back in the marriage bureau. Then they planned to return to the White House where they work in the executive office.
"I'm just so excited," Moon said.
While Moon and Legaspi were being married in a civil ceremony, James Betz and Robert Hawthorne were being married outside the courthouse by the Rev. Bonnie J. Berger, a former chaplain at George Washington University Hospital, where the couple formerly worked.
U.S. security marshals, who were stationed throughout the courthouse, escorted one woman out of building after she began yelling that "God won't recognize" same-sex marriages. The woman had been standing in line with the same-sex couples who were waiting for their licenses.