St. Pete’s Luis Balaguer and Dan Casper met while they were still living in the Windy City. Balaguer moved to Chicago in 1976 from Puerto Rico while Casper, a self-described “good Midwestern boy,” relocated from Indiana in 1990.
Though they were both active in the local LGBTQ scene, it took more than a decade in the same city for them to connect. Sure, they’d crossed paths, said hello when they ran into each other at the bars, and had some mutual friends, but they didn’t get to know each other until they were both volunteering for an International Mr. Leather competition in the early 2000s.
Balaguer worked with the set crew, while Casper sold t-shirts. “That was the first time we really met and really spent time together,” Balaguer says.
The couple kissed for the first time at an after party for the event. Casper’s BFF witnessed the kiss and told him afterwards, “I knew right then and there, you guys were going to be together a long time. I always wondered what it was like when you see stars when you kiss someone, and I could tell you both absolutely saw stars.”
Casper adds, “And we’ve been together ever since. The funny thing is we both said we weren’t looking for anything serious and here we are 17 years later.”
The relationship moved quickly, Balaguer says. They knew of each other from the local bar scene and each “different dimension” he got to know of Casper helped “seal the deal.”
Balaguer recalls inviting Casper to join him at a Human Rights Campaign gala in Chicago. It was the first formal event they attended together. “I remember that he came down in a tux and I though, ‘Alright, this is good for me,’” he says.
He asked Casper to marry him on their one-year anniversary. But they waited seven years before having a wedding.
“We were waiting for marriage equality,” Casper says. There was movement in the Illinois state government that indicated changes were happening in that area. “Ultimately, what came out of it was a civil union,” he adds.
Balaguer says, “Back then, we could only get a civil union, but we were tired of waiting. So, we had a full-on wedding…basically, we just had a wedding for a civil union.”
They invited 125 of their friends and family for “a giant, amazing ceremony and reception,” Casper says.
They planned to fill out the legal paperwork to get married as soon as it was allowed.
Then, they moved to Florida about seven years ago and they quickly fell in love with St. Petersburg. Casper’s real estate career brought the couple to the Tampa Bay area. Meanwhile, Balaguer grew a career in health care staffing and launched a t-shirt company, selling his wares at Pride-related events and the Metro LGBT Welcome Center.
When same-sex marriage was legalized at a federal level in 2015, they held off on legalizing their marriage. In Illinois, since they had a civil union, it would have been easy to check a box on a piece of paper to automatically convert it to a marriage.
Casper says Florida didn’t recognize their civil union, since it was filed in another state. They knew they’d have to head to the local courthouse to fill out a marriage license – which is what they did Oct. 7, around their eighth wedding anniversary. “Around the day we consider our wedding, we went to the courthouse and got our marriage license,” he says.
The couple approached it casually. After all, they felt that they’d been married for years.
Balaguer says, “I thought of it as just a legal matter that we’re dealing with and we were going about it really casually. I just put on some shorts when the courthouse opened to get our license, no big deal. Our friends told us they could be there with us, but why? We’ve already had our wedding.”
Then, they arrived at the St. Petersburg Judicial Building downtown. “In that moment, it started to feel really different and less casual,” he says.
Casper adds, “Never knowing what a courthouse wedding was I just thought I would sign a piece of paper and we’d be done.”
But they found that it was more formal than that. They were brought into a room to recite their vows in front of the courthouse clerk. “That did it for me,” he says. “That’s when I knew, Oh. This is really real.”
Civil Union Ceremony and Reception Date: Sept. 29, 2012
Civil Union Venue: Uncommon Ground Cafe, Chicago
Civil Union Officiant: Life-Cycle Celebrant Anita Vaughan
Photographer: Hilda Burke
Wedding Date: Oct. 7, 2020
Wedding Venue: St. Petersburg Judicial Building
Wedding Officiant: Courthouse clerk
