The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to delay an appeals court ruling that struck down the state's gay marriage ban. This means that same-sex couples wishing to marry will have to wait.

A county clerk in northern Virginia asked the Supreme Court to delay an earlier decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry as early as Thursday morning. If the Supreme Court denied this delay, Virginia would have had to recognize marriages from out of state couples as well.

The decision by the Court was not unexpected because they have issued similar delays in other states.

Byron Babione, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group based in Scottsdale, Arizona, that supported the challenge by the two Virginia circuit court clerks whose duties include issuing marriage licenses, agreed with the decision to delay the decision.

"Virginians deserve an orderly and fair resolution to the question of whether they will remain free to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman in their laws," Babione said in a statement.

Same-sex marriage supporters were not pleased with the decision. They said that gays and lesbian couples have waited too long to get married.

"Loving couples -- and families -- should not have to endure yet another standstill before their commitment to one another is recognized here in Virginia," James Parrish, executive director of Equality Virginia, said in a statement.

Clerks in Virginia were preparing for the same-sex couples to come in and start asking for marriages Thursday. They were preparing revised marriage contracts and licenses and even asking for more deputy clerks to assist them with possible crowding and long lines.

2010 Census figures estimate that there are 14,243 same-sex couples in Virginia.

In 2006, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and refusing to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

The overturning of the same-sex ban is the first in the South. The South has tradionally been a region where conservative moral values have been held strong.