Busy Day for Gay Marriages at Napa County Clerk's Office

When Patrice Weaver and Connie Horn planned their visit to Napa months ago from their current home in Atlanta, they had no inkling it would be just after a ban on gay marriages was lifted in California.

"We thought we were just going to drink wine and hang out with my best friend," said Weaver, 59, referring to artist Sherrell Harper, a former leader of the Napa County Chamber of Commerce.

Instead, the day before they got on the plane, they heard that a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Friday unanimously voted to dissolve a stay that had blocked the resumption of same-sex marriages in California.

"It was 7 p.m. (East Coast time) when we saw the news on Facebook," said Horn, 64. "We called the Napa County Clerk's Office and made an appointment for today."

They were not alone. At least four groups of couples and wedding parties preceded the nuptials for Weaver and Harper; at least four more groups were waiting to go after them.

"It's very busy here," said Harper, who joined her friends for the ceremony, along with Jeanne Allen of San Francisco, a former middle school student of Weaver's, and Cindy Kuhle of Pleasanton, Weaver's oldest family friend.

"It's amazing how this all came together," Horn said. "We've been together 18 years."

Friday's decision by the U.S. Circuit Court in San Francisco followed Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing federal rights for same-sex couples and declining to rule on Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban in California.