Wedding Bells Ring For Equality In New York

Congrats everyone!  This Sunday, 659 marriage licenses were given out to same sex couples in New York, and volunteer judges married 484 couples, gay and straight, according to a news release from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office.

The stories are beautiful, from that of Linda Mussmann, 64, and Claudia Bruce, 65, who were married in Hudson, NY before a crowd of 300 in an old bakery they transformed into a theater two decades ago, to Dee Smith, 25, and Kate Wrede, 21, from Long Island, who were married at exactly midnight at a “romantic park gazebo”.  John Sullivan, 40, carried a gold and silver ring fitted with small stones from his mother’s engagement ring for his wedding. He told the NYT, that looking at the ring means something more than marriage. “It means that she’s here.”

The first couple to say  “I do” were NYC’s Phyllis Siegel, 77, and Connie Kopelov, 85, one of whom was in a wheel chair. They got hitched at the marriage bureau  at 9:02 a.m., setting off wedding bells across the city.