Even before gay marriage became official, some couples did it anyway. One couple celebrates a marriage older than gay marriage itself.
The path toward marriage equality was unpredictable at times, frustrating at others. As policy shifted from stop-gap civil unions to state-by-state marriage rights to, inevitably, nationwide rights, many couples didn't wait for the official government go-ahead and just called their marriages, marriages.
One such couple is Robin and Jason Delgatto of Chicago. The couple has been together almost 16 years and has been married ( by their own defintition, at least ) for almost 11. After all this time together, the family has expanded with the addition of two children. All of this means there are many anniversaries to celebrate.
Robin Delgatto recently shared the following statement with Windy City Times on the evolution of his family and how weddings are weddings:
"We got married before it was legal, but promised to use all the words: marriage, wedding and husband. We didn't want to wait for the world to catch up with us and certainly didn't want to use words that had less meaning. We're all just people and we all own these words equally. We picked up the piece of paper ( marriage certificate ) a year-plus later in Iowa, so I could get my name changed.
The wedding itself was held in the theater where we fell in love, when he came to see me in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. I played Linus, which is now our dog's name.
Now we have been together almost 16 years and married almost 11; we got married on our fifth anniversary. We have two perfect daughters and we're getting ready to buy our first house together in Evanston."
View the entire wedding guide at windycitymediagroup.com/WeddingGuideFrontpage/current.pdf .