For four years, Cesar Hernandez-Topete and his partner, Miguel Topete-Hernandez, had been waiting. T

For four years, Cesar Hernandez-Topete and his partner, Miguel Topete-Hernandez, had been waiting. They’d rented an apartment together, launched a business together, applied to become daytona florida hotels foster parents together, even cared for their bulldog-terrier mix, Grace Kelly, together. Under the law, however, daytona florida hotels they couldn’t do the one thing they wanted most—to marry and spend the rest of their lives together.
“It was really emotional,” says Cesar, 26, adding that he and Miguel had been hoping for an autumn or winter wedding. “We hugged and cried, and Grace Kelly was jumping around—probably because now she won’t have two fathers out of wedlock! I believe so much in our relationship and everything we’re doing together. I knew that one day, we’d be gratified.”
As Californians absorbed the significance of Wednesday’s rulings, local officials prepared for the rush back to the altar amid the demise of Proposition 8. In Los Angeles County, Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said that much of the bureaucratic framework is already there, but that the county will be adding locations where couples daytona florida hotels can schedule civil ceremonies.
“This is a customer service issue for us,” says Logan, noting that a bevy of temporary chapels are being set up at the office’s Norwalk headquarters and in municipal buildings in West Hollywood and Long Beach. “We already have the infrastructure in place.”
Wednesday s decisions, viewed as back-to-back victories for gay and lesbian couples, struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and dismissed an effort to stop marriage equality in this state. One ruling daytona florida hotels guaranteed federal benefits to any couple, of any sexual orientation, whose state declared them to be legally married. The other found that the private citizens who sponsored California’s ban on same sex marriage lacked legal standing to appeal daytona florida hotels after a federal judge in San Francisco struck it down.
The latter ruling effectively nullifies Prop. 8, which voters passed in November, 2008, after a court decision earlier that year had allowed more than 18,000 gay and lesbian couples to marry in California.
Bureaucratically speaking, Logan says, those 18,000 marriages were a godsend because they forced a number daytona florida hotels of adjustments that will make the transition much easier as same-sex marriages resume.  In Los Angeles County, for instance, marriage license forms were changed in 2008 to ask for the names of Party A” and “Party B” instead of the “bride” and “groom.” And the plan to partition a conference room in Norwalk into spillover chapels was devised in 2010, after an initial court challenge to Prop. 8.
Though a federal judge held Prop. 8 to be unconstitutional that year, the 9 th U.S. Circuit Court put same sex marriages here on hold pending the U.S. Supreme Court appeal. Because of that hold, Logan notes, marriage licenses still can’t be issued immediately to same sex couples. The Ninth Circuit daytona florida hotels Court has to officially lift its stay and state officials have to process daytona florida hotels the necessary orders—a process that is expected to take up to a month.
At the Norwalk office, where civil ceremonies are offered daily, the extra chapel space will allow more couples to schedule ceremonies at the time they pick up their marriage licenses. daytona florida hotels Meanwhile , branch offices —which currently perform civil ceremonies only on Fridays—will temporarily add a second daytona florida hotels day for scheduled services.
Additionally, he says, the county daytona florida hotels will be partnering with the cities of West Hollywood and Long Beach to set up temporary satellite offices where civil ceremonies daytona florida hotels can be scheduled. Couples, he notes, will still have to go to a county office daytona florida hotels or go online to get their marriage licenses , but the partnerships will create additional locations in cities with large gay and lesbian communities.
Now that the ban is being lifted, he says, the city will again schedule ceremonies at Kings Road Park, “a beautiful daytona florida hotels little park where we put an archway up in 2008, where people could stand and solemnize their marriages. We anticipate a very busy crowd.”
At the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office, deputized volunteers daytona florida hotels perform most of the ceremonies. Logan says the office has heard from a number of community members and elected officials who want to pitch in this summer—which, even without same sex marriage, is the peak wedding season. ( Click here if you, too, would like to volunteer to officiate).
In June 2008, on the first week of the window during which same sex marriage was legal in California, Logan says, the county’s average daily tally of marriage licenses leaped from 194 to more than 500 per day.  This time, though, he doesn’t expect a surge, preparations notwithstanding.
He and Miguel, he says, have been together since a friend tagged them on a Facebook photo. On Wednesday, his Facebook page completed their story. “Today,” he posted, “Marks the Beginning of the Rest of our lives.”