Married in Massachusetts: meet the seven gay and lesbian couples whose desire to get hitched led to the court ruling that shook the nation.

Gina Smith and Heidi Norton were in the car with their two young sons when the Massachusetts supreme judicial court's decision in favor of gay marriage was announced over the radio. "In the background they were playing 'Goin' to the chapel,'" Norton recalls, from the 1964 hit song "Chapel of Love." "It almost felt like our family was giving us the news. We screamed and gave high fives to the kids. Then we all started singing along to the music."

Alerted to the impending decision on November 18, the Northampton couple, both 39, were on their way to a press conference in Boston to meet up with the six other couples who sued the state in 2001 after they were denied marriage licenses. Gloria Bailey, 63, also was driving when she heard the news. Sine started to cry, but that didn't stop her partner of 32 years, Linda Davies, 58, from immediately popping the big question. "She 'had 'always told me I had to wait until we could legally get married," Davies says. "I was dying to know the answer. She said, 'Yes.'"

The court ruled 4-3 that same-sex couples could not be denied marriage and gave the legislature 180 days to come up with a solution. With the successful end to the landmark case, all seven couples are now basking in its afterglow. Heartfelt hugs, grateful phone calls, and public rallies have marked the end of their status as second-class citizens, they say.

After the press conference, Hillary and Julie Goodridge, 47 and 46, respectively, went to their 8-year-old daughter Annie's school to deliver the news. "She started screaming and did a cartwheel," Julie Goodridge says. "Then she tried to explain what happened to the other members of her gym class, which became a little complicated." The children didn't understand, Goodridge says, but the adults did. "I walked in to the school and this young teacher, who is gay, cane up to me and gave me a huge hug in the middle of the hallway. He said he had started to cry when he heard the decision. It was just so great."

"We came home from all the interviews and there was a bouquet of flowers on the front porch from a married couple we know," says Ed Balmelli, 43, who took part in the lawsuit with his 44-year-old partner of nine years, Michael Horgan. Gary Chalmers, 38, returned to work to find 91 congratulatory e-mails on his computer. And that night the sister of his 40-year-old partner, Richard Linnell, called and offered to help plan their wedding. "Up until that point, people had made reference to us winning," he says, "but that made it sink in for me: This was real."

For most of the couples, some kind of ceremony or celebration is in the works for the moment the 180 days are up. The Goodridges plan to elope. Bailey and Davies, who were closeted for the first 10 years of their relationship, plan to lave a big church wedding. And Smith and Norton, who held a commitment ceremony in 1993, are planning a celebration that will involve their sons, Avery, 7, and Quinn, 3.

But David Wilson, 59, and Robert Compton, 54, who were joined in a commitment ceremony in the Unitarian Universalist Church in 2000, say another ceremony would lessen the vows they already took. Besides Compton adds, "We consider the date we moved in together as an anniversary, then when we married is another. We certainly don't need a third." And like the others, he says, legal protection, not matrimony, was their motivation for joining the lawsuit. He recalls a time when he was rushed to the hospital because of a kidney stone and Wilson was kept in the waiting room. "I was in there by myself, and it was frightening," he says. "They didn't recognize or value our relationship. This court ruling was a statement that validates it."

Aside from the marriage licenses it promises, the ruling alone was an important validation for all gay and lesbian relationships, says Maureen Brodoff, 51, who took part in the suit with her partner of 24 years, Ellen Wade. "When the justices put into words what this meant, it was just such an incredibly moving experience," she says. "It's going to mean a lot of good things for [our community], not just in Massachusetts."

However, Brodoff and the others say they won't be satisfied until they have those licenses in hand. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney joined the state's attorney general in immediately opposing the court's decision and stating his support for civil unions rather than full marriage. "The fight for equal marriage will not be over if that comes to pass," Horgan says. "Civil unions do not fulfill what the supreme judicial court said needs to be done. This fight is not over for us until we have marriage."

Romney and others also support a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage in the state as the union between a man and a woman. But it would take close to three years for such an amendment to go before the voters, as required by law, Bailey says. In the meantime a lot of gay couples are going to come out and get married. "Everyone is going to realize they know someone gay," she says. "And it will be their neighbors and family and friends."

Two statewide polls conducted several days after the court's decision showed about 50% support for the ruling. "That reflects two years of conversation in Massachusetts," Hillary Goodridge says. "It's really brought people out of the closet. It's been a great conversation. The rest of the country hasn't bad it yet, but they're catching up."