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Guests en route to the sanctuary get the message as they stroll past the sedate parlor and glimpse a wedding cake topped with a plastic pair of tuxedoed men.

In a hallway across the building, David Hill and Marc Epplen adjust boutonnieres, greet their five attendants with hugs, and steady themselves for a momentous event: Their wedding.

That’s what they are calling it - the program says "Marriage Ceremony" - despite objections from the minister performing the service. He prefers the terms "holy union" or "covenanting ceremony" when people of the same sex are involved.

Hill, 40, and Epplen, 26, are openly homosexual. They met three years ago, moved in together in Clifton and decided soon after that their relationship was for keeps.

What they want, they say, is the same thing any other committed couple wants: the opportunity to declare their intentions before God and the chance to have them recognized by the community.

In most churches, same-sex marriages are not allowed or recognized. In the eyes of nearly every state, including Ohio, they are not legal. (In 1993, Hawaii’s supreme court ruled it is unconstitutional to refuse marriage licenses to homosexuals; the case still is in dispute.)

Gay rights is a volatile issue in Cincinnati, where a 1992 human rights ordinance banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, race, age, gender, disability, marital status, religion, or national or Appalachian origin.

Issue 3, which repealed those protections in 1993, was struck down by a federal judge. His decision was appealed and a ruling is yet to be handed down.

Meanwhile, the protections for gays, lesbians and bisexuals was repealed March 8 by Cincinnati City Council. So far, no court challenge has been raised to council’s action.

This does not dissuade Hill and Epplen, who planned their ceremony in September, stopping by McAlpin’s bridal registry to choose wine glasses and a silver-plate pattern.

"The commitment is already there," says Hill, who manages Clifton Woods, a 74 unit apartment complex. "We wanted to make the commitment common knowledge."

Since unions of homosexuals are not recognized by law, no record of their numbers is available, says Cindy Abel, executive director of Stonewall Cincinnati, and organization that promotes gay and lesbian issues.

"More and more people are wanting not only to have the motional part of a marriage, but to establish outside recognition of their relationship," she says.

Hill is tired of the prevailing attitude that homosexuals are only interested in short-term sex. That attitude exists, he says, "because you’re not offered any legitimacy. If they would allow us legitimacy, you would see more stable relationships."

Before meeting Hill, Epplen says, "I had relationships that had lasted a year and a half, tops. I never felt the urge to commit."

When Epplen announced wedding plans, his family was less than enthused. "They said, ‘You should call it (the ceremony) something different; you shouldn’t be doing it in a Christian church.’"

"What I was hoping for was, ‘We don’t understand but we accept you.’ What I got was, ‘We don’t understand and we don’t accept you.’"

The frosty reaction frustrates friend Lisa Katz, a graduate student in lighting design at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

"To me it’s obvious they love each other very much," says Katz, who was an attendant at the nuptials. "It’s like any other positive, loving relationship I’ve ever seen."

Epplen, a second-year student in pre-veterinary medicine at the University of Cincinnati, came out at age 17. "I discovered that life was very short and I had not spent any time being me."

Hill has spent most of adulthood grappling with gender identity. "It was 35 years of trying to be something I wasn’t," he says, before coming to terms with his sexual preferences.

Many of his gay or lesbian friends who seek formal commitments book a church that welcomes gays - such as New Spirit Metropolitan Community Church in Mount Auburn - or exchange vows and rings at home.

"A friend told us, ‘Call it a holy union. Take what you can get,’" Hill says. Instead, he and Epplen asked the pastor of their mainstream Protestant congregation to perform the ceremony at the church to which they belong.

Why?

"We wanted that form of expression," Epplen says. Besides, "Those facilities are the center of our spiritual community."

Hill says he’s not asking for special treatment.

"What we’re doing is getting married whether the state recognizes it or not. We want the same options everyone else has, the same rights" given heterosexual couples who purchase a marriage license.

If the state recognized same-sex unions, he says, "We could file joint income taxes." As it is, "If Marc dies first, since he has no ‘legal’ heirs, I’d have to fight his family for any joint monies" such as Social Security benefits.

Says Katz: "I think it would be great if people could start realizing that their marriage is like a heterosexual marriage except they’re not allowed to sign a piece of paper."

Hill and Epplen plan to purchase a marriage certificate at Codesbury Books and Church Supplies in Hartwell. "We would like to have a legal binding contract," Hill says. Even without it, "We will consider ourselves to be lawfully married."

As for the vows, he says, "They will be pretty standard, with Bible readings that speak of tolerance and the power of love."

To minimize expenses, a friend is baking a two-tiered wedding cake and the pair have issued 360 computer-generated invitations.

"Everyone in the apartment complex is invited," Hill says - including his former wife.

Rosemary Hill was skeptical when she heard about her ex-husband’s impending wedding.

"I asked, ‘can you do that? Is it legal?"

Divorced from David after a marriage that produced a child now 12, photo buff Rosemary has agreed to take pictures at his Valentine’s Day nuptials. Most former wives would say the gesture exceeds magnanimity and borders on the heroic.

But time works wonders, she explains.

"It’s taken me three years to where I’ve gotten comfortable enough to talk about their relationship. If I’d been asked to do this six months after David and I separated, I don’t know if I would have been able to."

"Part of it is, too, that our daughter has always come first to both of us. I know that other divorces can be very messy, and it’s not fair for the children involved."

A neighbor living down the hall from David and Marc at Clifton woods, Rosemary shares the care of daughter Melissa with the pair. "She has people who care about each other deeply," her mom says. "I think she’s doing well."

Epplen and Hill have taken pains to include the child in their festivities. The invitation reads: "Melissa Marie Hill happily invites you to the wedding of her two dads."

On Valentine’s day at 6:15pm, the two prospective grooms car-pool to the church with their guests. They will depart in a silver stretch limo, a service donated as a wedding gift by a friend.

The minister balks at the program - he had advised using "Blessing of Covenant" instead of "Marriage Ceremony" on the cover - but agrees to stay and perform the ceremony.

In the rear of the chapel, Rosemary adjusts the lens of her Pentax to snap candid shots of 200 or so guests assembled in varnished wooden pews to watch the jeans-clad couple exchange vows.

Melissa, here to accompany her dads down the aisle, jounces a friend’s baby on her shoulder. Attendant Katz, who jokingly calls herself a "best person," will stand as a witness for Marc.

When all are seated, attendants walk the length of the center aisle, accompanied by a piano selection from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. Linking arms with Epplen and her dad, Melissa leads them to the black-robed minister in front of the altar.

"What is marriage? What is a covenant?" the pastor asks. "We live in a state and sit in a church that do not recognize the commitment of these two men as a marriage."

After blessing the couple’s union, he removes himself from the premises, unable to authorize the exchange of rings and vows:

"I, David, take you, Marc, to be my husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow."

Following the couple’s protracted kiss, Melissa presents them to the audience:

"With love and joy I now introduce you to my two fathers under the name they will now be using, David and Marc Epplenhill."

Guests applaud as attendants scurry toward the parlor.

Arm-in-arm, the Epplenhills head for the receiving line, accompanied by a taped song for the veteran rock band, the Pretenders: