This is what QUEER MARRIAGE looks like: Jay Villa and Joe Gates
After I met Jay Villa, I kept hearing about this elusive husband of his. I finally got to meet Jay’s other half, Joe Gates, last August. Villa is a local event and wedding planner and Gates is a mechanic and manager for a machine rental company. I sat down with them over homemade biscuits and coffee to hear how this dynamic duo came to be.
Robyn Vie-Carpenter: When did you guys meet?
Jay Villa: December 3, 2003, at Hamburger Mary’s.
RVC: Hamburger Mary’s, really?
Joe Gates: In Las Vegas.
JV: I was actually celebrating my 21st birthday. Joe was friends with one of my friends, [a bouncer there].
JG: He kept coming outside to talk to me.
JV: He was cute. Actually, everybody thought he was straight.
JG: Haha! That’s why I was outside talking to the bouncer. I’m not really <big> and <gay>. And you really don’t want to see me dance.
JV: We both lived in Vegas at the time. We saw each other a couple of times throughout the months, and would just kind of smile and say hello. I’d be going, “oh look there goes that cute guy” to my friends. Then March 13, 2004 we’re at Hamburger Mary’s again. He asked me if I would have drinks with him and his friends. I was there with my bestie and tell him “do you mind if I hang out with this guy?” He’s like, “how’re you gonna get home?” I said I’ll find a ride.
We’ve kinda been together since that night. Joe gave me his number. He wrote it on this little yellow piece of paper, that I still have. Monday he calls me, but I guess Tuesday was technically our first date. We went bowling. [Looking at Joe] Did we see each other Wednesday?
JG: I really don’t remember.
JV: Thursday, Joe called in sick from work. I told him that I would bring him dinner and picked up fries and shrimp.
JG: He brought me man food!
JV: As we were just eating, and he was like, no one’s ever bought me dinner. He asked if I would be his boyfriend. I just kind of looked at him and he has this look on his face like…
JG: I froze.
JV: …Cause I didn’t say anything for like a minute, then was like yes, of course. We were with each other every day after that. We lived together – my mother loved him to death. Our families got to know one another. After two years exactly to the day we met, Joe proposed.
I was planning a surprise birthday party for Joe. I’d planned to tell him we were having dinner at our friend’s house. Joe gets there and we yell “surprise!” And he’s like…
JG: …I already knew.
JV: And then close to around 11:15 or 11:30 p.m., around exactly the same time that I met him, two years ago…
RVC: [To Joe Gates] Because you met on your birthday.
JV: Exactly. So, Joe’s not really one to talk very much…
RVC: You don’t say?
JV: …And all of a sudden he starts this speech. Everybody’s like, ‘listen Joe’s talking!’ Our friend tells our other friend, turn off the TV.
RVC: They’re paying attention because Joe never talks.
JG: Yeah, so they’re like, it must be something good [laughs].
JV: I’m like, ‘what is he doing?’ The words I remember – since the day I met Jay I knew he’d be the one I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. It’s still not clicking in my head and I’m looking at him like, aw, that’s so cute. And he’s talking – and now I know he is the only one I want to spend the rest of my life with. He turns around to me and he grabs my hands and was like, Jay will you marry me? And my face – [dropping his jaw] I’m like – huh? Did this actually just happen? Of course I said yes.
After that we moved into our house. You know, marriages aren’t legal [in Nevada].
RVC: That’s the dumbest thing I could ever imagine in Nevada.
JV: Right? Look how many stars have gotten married there then annulled it. So, we’re not in a rush to get married. We’re committed to each other. We purchased a house, cars, everything, together. Then Prop 8 passed in California [banning same-sex marriage]. We were wanting the certificate that said “marriage.” Not civil union – which is great that states are passing civil unions at least, we gotta start somewhere – but it was about having a certificate that says married.
But when Labor Day weekend was coming up in like two weeks, we said, “screw it, let’s go get married!” We’d been engaged almost three years. We were going to go do it, just him and I, at first…
JG: My mom finds out.
JV: …And she’s like: ‘no, no, we gotta be there.’ So we decided a few friends and family…being from LA originally, I need a beach wedding, regardless. I don’t care if this is a quickie. When I say ‘I do’ it’s going to be on the beach. So, I got the officiant, found a restaurant…
RVC: You handled it all? What a surprise!
JV: Right, the wedding planner does all the planning, who knew?
JG: I just showed up.
RVC: Right, just tell me what time to be there.
JV: And what to wear. [laughs] So, we drove out there with friends and family. We were like, “guys, we’ll do this correctly another time,” have a massive reception with all of the stuff. They were like, “nope! We still want to be there.” So, at like 4:30 p.m. we said “I do” in Laguna Beach, on the cliff, overseeing the entire ocean.
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