San Diego clerk: 'I just love weddings'

The second-happiest group here as same-sex marriage licenses were issued may have been the county employees who volunteered to assist. Some took the applications, others acted as witnesses and guides as couples went outside to be wed on the lawn in front of the waterfront County Administration Building on Pacific Highway.

Some employees had been deputized to perform the civil ceremony from the newly rewritten script that refers to partners A and B.  One of those deputies, Michelle Smith, who is married with two children, said she could not resist the chance to be part of history.

“I just love weddings,” said Smith, a document technician in the assessor’s office. “I just hope I won’t cry.”

By midday, Smith had yet to tear up –- though she posed for pictures with a couple that she had just married: Patricia Stennett, 47, a general contractor, and Megan Sheffield, also 47, a program manager.

“I think I’m going to make it,” Smith said.

-- Tony Perry