Slide Show: The First Days of Gay Marriage

On Monday, May 19th, a judge struck down a ban on same-sex marriages in Oregon; a day later, another judge did the same in Pennsylvania. Weddings in both states began almost at once. A year after the Supreme Court decided, in Windsor v. United States, to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, marriage equality has become a reality in nineteen states, plus Washington, D.C.,; in each of these states, couples, some of whom had waited for decades, have rushed to say their vows as soon as it was legally possible. Here’s a slide show of photographs from the first days of legal same-sex marriage in states across the country.

Read Ariel Levy on how Edith Windsor fell in love, got married, and won a landmark case for gay marriage.