Longtime couple Margaret Miles and Cathy ten Broeke were the first
to marry in Minneapolis as Minnesota's gay marriage law took effect
on Thursday.
The Miles-Broeke wedding kicked off a marathon wedding session of
42 same-sex couples in the Minneapolis City Hall rotunda. Mayor R.T.
Rybak, an ordained Universal Life Church minister, plans to marry all
the couples in an event expected to last the entire night.
Reid Bordson and Paul Nolle, who met 13 years ago and are the
proud parents of 1-year-old Anna Bordson-Nolle, were among the 11
couples marrying at Como Park in St. Paul.
“This is doubling the number of weddings that we've done in a
24-hour cycle,” Michelle Furrer, campus manager at the park, told
the Pioneer
Press. “It's great to see that people are taking advantage
of the opportunity.”
A couple who got engaged at the Mall of America also were among
those tying the knot on Thursday morning. Holli Bartelt and Amy
Petrich married at the mall's Chapel of Love.
(Related: Mall
of America to host gay wedding.)
Following the defeat of an effort last year to limit marriage to
heterosexual couples with a constitutional amendment, lawmakers this
year legalized same sex marriage.
“To think that within a year it turned around and it actually
didn't get banned but became legal,” Bordson said. “This past
year has been awesome for same-sex couples.”