Mark Erson knew he wanted to marry Scott Jordan shortly after the pair first met in high school in the 1980s.
"He was so funny, handsome and kind," Erson says. At the time it seemed like a ridiculous dream: "No one was even out when I was at school."
It's taken more than 30 years but tomorrow the impossible will happen when New York becomes the latest – and largest – US state to allow same sex couples to marry.
For Erson, 51, it's a double blessing. He is the newly appointed reverend of St John's Lutheran Church on Christopher Street in the heart of the historically gay West Village and a stone's throw from The Stonewall Inn, which is seen by many as the birthplace of the gay rights movement.
"The area couldn't be more gay," says Jordan, 50. "It's a really a historic moment. I feel like I've been disenfranchised all my life and now I can be just like everybody else."
Jordan has had a varied career including stints in the Navy, working as a busboy at nightclub Studio 54 and theatre production. He didn't want to get married anywhere else. "This is my city," he says. "I want to recognise my union with Mark in my home town."
While Erson has a largely straight congregation he is expecting to preside over a lot of gay marriages in the coming years. Most of all, he says, he hopes society is entering an era when such labels will matter less.
He believes there is still a long way to go for marriage equality in the US. "But this is a huge step forward," he said. "I'm looking forward to a day when we can talk about marriage in terms of love and trust, and not define it by the sex of the people getting married."
Novelist Wayne Hoffman, author of Hard and Sweet Like Sugar and a West Village resident said: "It's important for what it [means] for the rest of the country. If you talk to young people today they think it's ridiculous that same sex couples can't get married but at the same time there are 30 states that have effectively banned gay marriage."
The state of New York only passed gay marriage last month after a long, tough fight, but New York city already looks likely to become one of the hottest same sex wedding destinations on the planet.
By Friday the city clerk's office had been flooded with applications. The city originally set a maximum of 749 to prepare for with the first day of the new law on Sunday but has now said it will grant 823 applications, most from same-sex couples. In order to marry this weekend couples will need an exemption from a state law that requires a 24-hour waiting period between the granting of a license and the wedding. About 70 volunteer judges are expected to appear at clerk's offices in the city to offer that exemption in time for Sunday.
Jess Kimball, 29, a New York-based consultant and her girlfriend Lauren Leslie, 40, who works in finance, are planning their wedding. "New York is supposed to stand for something. This is the 'land of the free' and yet we were denying basic rights to 10% of our population. Well that's changed now," she said.
Other states already offer same sex marriage but many couples held out for New York. Marrying in New Jersey wasn't an attractive option for Gail Marquis, 56, and Audrey Smaltz, 74.
"It just seemed so medicinal, like you put on rubber gloves and a guard and fill out papers," Marquis told the New York Times.
This weekend's rush of weddings will be followed next weekend by the first same sex outdoor weddings in Central Park. Twenty four couples plan to marry in an event called Pop Up Chapel, organised by writer Bex Schwartz. "New Yorkers have a fierce sense of hometown pride and we wanted to do something to celebrate that," she said.
Society wedding planner Hariette Rose Katz is currently working on three weddings for New York same sex power couples, including the first to be held at the Four Seasons. "Everybody wants to be married here," she said. "This is their city."
Not everyone will be celebrating, however. Religious extremists from the Westboro Baptist Church are expected to protest as happy couples line up to get their licenses.
But another vocal critic will be silent. New York's Catholic archbishop Timothy Dolan, who called the legal change "Orwellian social engineering" will not be speaking out this Sunday. He's on holiday.
