The 100 guests who gathered last month for Gloria Casarez and Tricia Dressel’s 10th anniversary party were treated to a few big surprises — including the announcement that the couple had eloped in New York City a few weeks earlier.
Casarez and Dressel married in the Big Apple on Aug. 12, revealing their nuptials to friends and family members at a Sept. 3 party in Philadelphia.
While the marriage took place under wraps, the couple surprised their guests with a commitment ceremony at the party, officiated by Mayor Nutter — the first such ceremony the mayor has ever led.
Casarez, the city’s director of LGBT affairs, and Dressel, director of human resources and organizational effectiveness at Solutions for Progress, met a decade ago at Washington West Project through their jobs — Dressel was at Mazzoni Center and Casarez was then serving as the executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative.
In the past 10 years, Dressel said she and her new wife have stayed strong by concentrating on the foundation of their relationship — love.
“It’s the mutual respect we have for each other and just remembering that, while our lives can be chaotic with work, things going on and personal crises, we love each other,” she said. “We always try to just remember what’s important, which is the people you care about, the people you love, and she’s the one I love and the one I share my life with, so at the end of the day, that’s what matters.”
When New York legalized same-sex marriage this summer, the couple decided taking the plunge was the next step in their relationship, but Casarez said she didn’t initially grasp how much the wedding would impact her.
“When we purchased our home together, we thought this is a new level, we’re committing to this 30-year mortgage together. And in 10 years, we’ve navigated a lot of hard stuff together so when we decided to get married, I was thinking it was this action, this thing we did, but it’s more than that,” she said. “We had been joking originally, ‘Let’s get gay married,’ but this isn’t ‘gay marriage,’ this is marriage. This is significant.”
Attaining a marriage license in New York was also especially significant for the couple, as Dressel hails from, and her family still lives in, Buffalo — so she holds the same marriage certificate as her parents, which she said was a poignant realization.
The couple’s anniversary party was already planned when New York legalized marriage equality, so they decided the timing was right to keep their nuptials private — and simple — at first and incorporate their loved ones at the party.
On Aug. 5, they took half-days and headed to Brooklyn to get a marriage license and, one week later, returned to Manhattan with a witness, who served as their photographer.
They took the subway to the clerk’s office and waited their turn — among a long line of same-sex couples — to be legally wed. Afterward, they got crepes, visited their favorite spots in the city and had dinner and drinks before returning to Philadelphia.
“It’s funny because it’s such a huge city but it was a very intimate, private moment that we shared just the two of us,” Dressel said.
They both told their parents their news the day before the anniversary party and unveiled their announcement to the rest of their family and friends during the party, at the Fleisher Art Memorial, through a video presentation of their wedding.
While the wedding vows were taken in private, the couple also wanted to share their love in a public way and, a few weeks before the party, Casarez asked Nutter to officiate, a request she said he “graciously” accepted.
Nutter said in his remarks that he’s performed nearly 50 weddings but Casarez’s and Dressel’s ceremony was his first same-sex commitment ceremony, which was news to Casarez.
“That was a real surprise to me, but that made it even extra special,” she said. “The commitment ceremony really brought the tears and I think people felt our love, and we felt all the love coming from them as well.”
The private and public moments of their wedding and commitment ceremony fused to make a memorable — and lasting — impression on the couple.
“It’s difficult to separate the marriage from the public affirmation with our family, friends and community members, but they were both huge things that happened to us and I do feel different now,” Dressel said. “I didn’t really put much weight into marriage before but seeing the response — from our family and friends and coworkers — just reminds me how significant this is. This was a big, significant life event for us.”
Casarez agreed that the impact of becoming a married woman took her by surprise.
“Initially, we decided we wanted the party to just focus on our anniversary and what we have, this decade we have together, not on what we did with getting married. But what we did really has a lot of meaning and says a lot about who we are and what we have.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].