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.
Gay Weddings: NY says I do
