【纽约时报】Gay New Yorkers Head to Greenwich for Weddings

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Gay New Yorkers Head to Greenwich for Weddings
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/nyregion/11greenwich.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion
By LISA W. FODERARO    Published: June 10, 2009


Kari Hovland, left, and Marjorie Bennett of California traveled to Greenwich, Conn., to marry


GREENWICH, Conn. — They wanted a New York wedding. “Our lives are here; our friends are here,” said Janis Castaldi, 56, who lives in Westchester County with Lizz Endrich, the woman she married on May 21.

But New York has not approved same-sex marriage. “It got to the point where it doesn’t look 100 percent good right now. When you have Greenwich, Conn., 20 minutes away, I said, ‘Why are we waiting?’ ”

And so another couple from outside Connecticut made what is becoming a familiar pilgrimage to this border town of wealth and privilege, the first municipality over the state line by Interstate 95 or Metro-North.

From Nov. 12, 2008, the day same-sex marriages became legal in Connecticut, through the end of May, 139 same-sex couples applied for a marriage license and wed in Greenwich. All but three of them were been from out of state, most from New York City, according to Barbara Lowden, the town’s assistant registrar of vital statistics.

The town has the most same-sex marriages in Connecticut; statewide figures through February, the most recent available, showed Greenwich as the wedding spot for one in every five gay couples, though it has only 2 percent of the population.

Best known for its old- and new-money families stretching from the Long Island Sound to its fabled back country, Greenwich has been vexed in the past by its proximity to the border. In 2001, the crowds of people buying tickets for the Powerball lottery game, not available in New York, grew so big that town officials suspended sales for a day.

These days, by contrast, local businesses would like Greenwich’s new wave of toe-dippers to stick around a little longer than they have been. Most couples have a brief ceremony in a Town Hall meeting room or outside on the grounds, then leave immediately for receptions back in New York or honeymoons elsewhere.

Thomas C. Delaney, the general manager of the Hyatt Regency Greenwich, said the hotel had advertised on some gay and lesbian Web sites in hopes of attracting more business. The Hyatt averages 70 weddings a year, he said, but this summer only two same-sex weddings are scheduled so far. “We’d like to have a lot more,” he said.

June, the traditional month for wedding bliss, is coincidentally the month that New York’s Legislature is weighing whether to allow weddings between two people of the same sex. But while same-sex marriage is still not permitted in New York, Gov. David A. Paterson decreed last year that state agencies would honor such marriages legally performed elsewhere.

Couples say they go to Greenwich not only for the convenience, but also for the cachet. “Greenwich is beautiful and the Town Hall — it’s almost majestic,” said Mrs. Castaldi, a village trustee in Ossining, N.Y.

But Mrs. Castaldi and Mrs. Endrich did not stay in town after they were married. They left Monday for a honeymoon in St. Thomas and will celebrate in July with about 50 friends and relatives at a restaurant in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., near their home.

Many have come farther. Kari J. Hovland and Marjorie A. Bennett of Oakland, Calif., checked into the Homestead Inn last week and met a justice of the peace last Tuesday outside the brick and marble Town Hall.

Because the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, an amendment to the State Constitution that banned same-sex marriage, their home state does not recognize their marriage. But they are hoping the courts or the voters will one day change their minds.

“This feels sort of like Las Vegas,” Ms. Bennett said as she fished $75 out of her pocket for the justice.

They, too, will celebrate elsewhere. Ms. Hovland and Ms. Bennett, who both turn 50 this year, are planning a huge birthday party and marriage celebration in Kauai, Hawaii.

Nancy McKittrick, the associate director of catering at L’Escale , an upscale French restaurant on the water, handled a wedding luncheon for a gay couple from New York in March and has another scheduled in August for a couple from Baltimore. “It’s a market that we would love to have come to us,” she said.

For local justices of the peace, however, business is surging. Jon Hunt, who married Ms. Hovland and Ms. Bennett, said he gets “two to three calls a week.” Elizabeth Bonsal, who opens up her home for ceremonies, performed her 27th same-sex wedding in Greenwich on Monday.

“About 90 percent of the same-sex couples I marry, one or both have tears in their eyes,” Ms. Bonsal said. “Heterosexual couples will do that occasionally, but they haven’t been denied this right.”

One couple she married was Hermes Mallea, an architect, and Carey Maloney, an interior designer, principals of M (Group) in Manhattan. Together 27 years, the couple live on the Upper West Side and own a second home in Columbia County, N.Y., not far from Massachusetts, which also allows same-sex marriages.

“We had a choice of doing it in Massachusetts, but we have done several projects in Greenwich and we knew the Town Hall since we had gone there for permits,” Mr. Mallea said. “Still, you go into a situation like that and you’re not quite sure what the response will be, but the women in the office could not have been lovelier.”

They held the ceremony on April 3 in Ms. Bonsal’s house, which Mr. Mallea described as “old and WASPy,” with a stone fireplace and shipping portraits. They brought along one friend to be their maid of honor and announced their marriage the next night at their weekend house, where they hosted a dinner party for a dozen friends.

The gay-marriage trend has not registered much of a reaction from local officials. “I really don’t have an opinion on it,” said Peter J. Tesei, the town’s first selectman (equivalent to mayor) and a fifth-generation town resident. Peter J. Crumbine, another selectman, was slightly more effusive: “It’s logical that we’re the closest town to New York, and we’re happy to be of service.”

The local newspaper, Greenwich Time, noted recently that Stamford, the next closest town to New York City, ranked second to Greenwich in out-of-state same-sex marriages: 81 through the end of last week, according to Donna Loglisci, the town clerk.

For a few tense moments in Greenwich, Ms. Hovland and Ms. Bennett thought they might have to go elsewhere. Ms. Hovland asked at the Town Hall reception desk where they could apply for a marriage license and was apparently misunderstood. “The woman answered, ‘You can park anywhere,’ ” Ms. Bennett said. “We looked at each other and we thought, ‘Maybe they don’t do that here.’ ”

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