Last November, hundreds of same-sex couples went to the altar in the days before the election in California, which had become the second state to legalize same-sex marriage. (Massachusetts was the first, in 2004.) One couple who wed in 2008, Chloe Harris and Frankie Frankeny, had already had a commitment ceremony, and they hold domestic partnerships for San Francisco and for California.

Image Wade French and Brent Lok, holding an invalid marriage license from 2004 and a valid one from 2008, are awaiting the California Supreme Court's decision on their marriage and more than 18,000 others. Credit... Jim Wilson/The New York Times

“Keeping up with anniversaries is difficult,” Ms. Harris said.

But Ms. Harris, a freelance writer, and Ms. Frankeny, a photographer, said, their marriage last fall “was a big moment.”

“We had said ‘I do’ before, but this time it carried a lot more weight particularly because our families were there,” said Ms. Harris, who, like Ms. Frankeny, is from Texas. “What really changed was the relationship with our families. It’s when our relationship really gelled in their minds. They may not understand how  or why  we’re gay, but now they get why we wanted to get married.”

Since the passage of Proposition 8, several states have legalized same-sex marriage, including Iowa, Maine and Vermont. Connecticut, where a court decision legalized same-sex marriage shortly before Election Day, began performing ceremonies shortly after California banned them. At the moment, married same-sex couples in California have the same rights as straight, married couples under California law, though same-sex couples have no federal recognition.

Like several other states, California allows members of the same sex to enter into domestic partnerships, which afford many of the same rights as marriage. But Kate Kendell, the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, says domestic partnerships are not equivalent to marriage.

“It is more than symbolism to say that an entire category of recognition is off limits to one class of people,” Ms. Kendell said. “And the category that is off limits is the one that is most culturally desirable.”

And, it seems, an institution not taken lightly. Gerardo Marin and Jay Thomas said they debated whether to codify their decade-long relationship last fall, but opted against getting married at the last moment, because “we didn’t feel we should be rushed into it,” said Mr. Marin, 35.