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GALLERY: Same-Sex Couples Across Michigan Get Hitched

UPDATE: The U.S. Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit has issued a temporary stay on Michigan’s same-sex marriage case until Wednesday.
Same-sex couples in Washtenaw, Oakland, Ingham and Muskegon counties are getting married Saturday morning after Judge Friedman’s decision on March 22 ruled Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
The ruling came late in the afternoon – as county clerk’s offices were preparing to close – leading many to believe there would only be a small gap of time to legally be wed in Michigan, before a potential stay and appeal from the Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette next week. However, the four counties’ clerks announced that licenses would be issued Saturday morning.
Hundreds of couples flocked to their county’s courthouses early Saturday morning, some even forming lines down the streets.
In Oakland County, over 250 people have flooded the building. So many couples are seeking to be wed, Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown stopped doing individual weddings and began to organize mass weddings.
The first batch was nearly 25 same-sex couples.
Rev. Kimi Riegel of Northwest Unitarian Church helped with the ceremony in Oakland. She said she moved to Michigan from Massachusetts the same year the state legalized marriage.
“I’ve waited my whole ministry for this,” she said.
Over 300 same-sex couples were married in Michigan today. At 3 p.m., weddings were still being orchestrated.

VIDEO: Oakland county clerk Lisa Brown married over 140 gay couples March 22. Here she is marrying the first couple, Frank Colasonti Jr. And Jim Ryder. So many couples wanted to marry that Brown gave trying to do them individually and started doing them in batches of about 25 couples at a time. This shows her officiating the first batch with Rev. Kimi Reigel of the First Unitarian Church in Southfield.

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