Gay London couples await same-sex weddings at midnight

 
Wedding beaus: Bernardo Marti and John Coffey
28 March 2014

Gay London couples will make history tonight when they get married as soon as legally possible.

Westminster, Islington and Camden are staging special ceremonies for couples after equal marriage laws are enacted at midnight.

Many more weddings will be held tomorrow and celebratory events will be held across the capital over the weekend, including a mass singalong at the Royal Festival Hall tomorrow night.

Tying the knot: Louis Monaco and Aaron Erhab will wed at Islington Town Hall at 10am on Saturday morning

Westminster’s superintendent registrar Alison Cathcart said: “People do want to be part of history. Everybody is getting quite excited. We’ll wait for the clock to tick to midnight — when the law is implemented — and then it’s all systems go.”

Just after midnight in Islington town hall, veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will act as chief witness for the wedding of Peter McGraith and David Cabreza.

In Camden, mayor Jonathan Simpson will conduct the wedding of Sinclair Treadway, 20, and Sean Adl-Tabatabai, 32, at the town hall. And in Westminster’s Mayfair library, John Coffey, 52, and his partner Bernardo Marti, 48, will be married by Ms Cathcart in a double ceremony with two heterosexual friends, Jose Martinez Soler and Zumalde Arregui, as “a real symbol of equality”.

Their stories will be told in the documentary Gay, Married and Legal, which will be shown on BBC1 next Friday at 7.30pm.

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act came into force in July last year but it was not until March 13 this year when couples were able to register their intention to marry under the Act for the first time.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said a multi-coloured flag - adopted as a symbol of the gay community in 1970s San Francisco - will be flown above the Cabinet Office and Scotland Office from today.

Read More

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in