The first same-sex couple to get to the Travis County Clerk’s Office on Friday, before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, was legally married over the weekend.
At their ceremony on Saturday, Lupe Garcia and Cindy Stocking seemed calm, as though they’d stood at the altar together before with Reverend Karen Thompson, but they were getting married for the first time.
"In the presence of God and these witnesses and by the power vested in me by the U.S. Constitution and thereby the state of Texas, I now pronounce you legally married. You may kiss," Rev. Thompson said.
They met here at Austin’s Metropolitan Community Church, and they dated for a year and a half. Garcia proposed at the top of the Empire State building last Thanksgiving.
On Friday, Stocking says they went to the Travis County Clerk’s Office to await the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.
"And then as soon as it came down we were the first ones, that they came out and said, ‘OK, why are you here?’ And we said, ‘We want to get a marriage license,'" Stocking said.
Garcia says the morning's soundtrack was the sound of camera flashes going off nonstop.
"As soon as the decision came down, all I heard was flash — tchk, tchk, tchk, tchk — the entire morning," Garcia says.
Garcia is 60 and Stocking is 57. Now that they’re legally married, they can make medical decisions for each other. Stocking can enjoy military spousal benefits, since Garcia is a veteran. And there's another plus, the couple says: saying “my wife” when referring to one another.
"Now to be able to use a term that before was so off-limits, I probably will need to think, ‘Oh I can say that now,'" Stocking says.
Garcia agrees it'll take a little adjustment.
"We were my best friend, my roommate and now, it’s like, ‘Hey, she really wasn’t. She was my wife all the time!' It’s kinda cute," she says, as they both laugh.
They rushed to have the district judge waive the 72-hour waiting period so they could have their wedding ceremony Saturday.
"Even though the Supreme Court is the law of the land, we were afraid that Texas might try to do something to take this away from us," Garcia says.
They’re giving friends and family from out of town some time to get here for their wedding party on Aug. 6.
