Video: Same-sex couples celebrate National Coming Out Day with marriages

By Adelaide Chen

Monday, Oct. 13, 2014 | 2 a.m.

It was a wedding without family, a wedding gown or cake as seven couples decided to tie the knot on stage. The occasion? The state of Nevada had officially begun recognizing same-sex marriages just two days before, and it was also National Coming Out Day. A celebration that was already underway, known as Las Vegas Pride’s NCOD Family Festival, was about to get bigger.

"It's that time of the evening. We're about to get things real serious," the emcee announced to the crowd around 8 p.m. "There's going to be a whole lot of 'I Dos' going on."

Two by two, the wedding ceremony was repeated for each couple, followed by cheers from the crowd.

Every couple had their own reasons for doing it this way: Randy Albertson and Stewart Holguin got the legalities out of the way to plan a larger wedding a year from now. Jacky and Megan Swallia wanted to be legally married before their twin babies were born in mid-January. Michael DeVille and Robert Hughes had waited six years to see this day.

Some of the more memorable parts of the evening: Sarah Clancy said in front of the audience that she had proposed to Lisa Guadagno at an In-N-Out Burger; Jes Cumpian and Halley Clark's two black pugs were unofficial witnesses in the crowd; Kawika Leopoldo and Craig Oliveira both cried; Kitzia Anderson and Monica Lopez surprised the planners by walking onto the stage at the last minute. Nevada state Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, who was the first to marry after the ban was lifted, hugged the newlyweds.

"Certainly, most of us never thought we'd see the day that we would be able to get married to our own partners," Nevada state Assemblyman James Healy said. "And we have finally reached that day."