Marriage dream comes true for same-sex couple
“We were straight up in love. We wanted to get married. There were no ifs, ands or buts. Since same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in Texas yet, we thought we were going to have to settle for a commitment ceremony. It’s kind of like a wedding. But you’re just committed as friends for life, basically. So you can’t carry each other on your taxes, or have life and health insurance together. A lot of our friends were doing commitment ceremonies. It was like the real thing. Their dad walked them down the aisle and everything. It was as legit as it could be at the time. We thought we were going to do something like that, too.
“Then, when it was announced that same-sex marriage had been legalized here, it was all over the radio, all over social media. We were both so happy. A lot of couples rushed out to get married. But we didn’t jump into it. We didn’t want to do it just because everybody else was doing it. We decided to wait for about a year, and then we began doing the whole planning thing.
“We got married on Feb. 18, 2017. It was six years after we started dating. We went through a lot to get here. Through it all, we showed that it’s important to be yourself. That you should love who you need to love, who you want to love. And don’t settle for anything less.”
— Samantha Villegas Espinoza and Eufemia Espinoza
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