“We are reviewing the judge’s ruling,” a Koster spokesman wrote to the Post-Dispatch in an email Friday afternoon.

The case before Youngs was not asking for Missouri’s constitutional ban on gay marriage to be overturned, only that the state allow marriages performed legally elsewhere to be recognized.

Other plaintiffs in the case, Alan Ziegler and LeRoy Fitzwater, both 43, were married in California in 2008, where they planned to continue living. But a job transfer required them to move last year to Missouri, where they were legally considered single men.

On Friday, they were driving to Chicago for Octoberfest and an Erasure concert. Along the way, they called and texted friends and family with the news that their marriage is now recognized in Missouri. They plan to have a celebration with their Soulard neighbors early next week.

Arlene Zarembka and Zuleyma Tang-Martinez of University City have been a couple for 31 years, marrying nine years ago in Canada.

“We never expected to see this in our lifetime” Zarembka, 66, said. “This is a historic and thrilling step.”

Gay marriage advocates hope it is just the first step. Rulings on two other same-sex marriage cases in Missouri are pending.