Friday, November 16, 2012

Wedding tourism: courting gay and lesbian couples

by NATALIE SWABY / KING 5 News

Bio | Email | Follow: @NSwabyKing5

KING5.com

Posted on November 14, 2012 at 11:22 PM

Updated yesterday at 11:28 PM

SEATTLE - Will Washington become a destination for same sex weddings? Right after voters approved Referendum 74, the advertisements started.

For the past decade, event planners Alex Martin and Kristen Tsiatsios have worked to make weddings magical. Their business is called Jubilee Event Engineers.

"It's a serious part of our business, for like 6 or 7 years more than half of our weddings have been gay weddings," said Martin.

The ceremonies have had it all, except state recognition that marriage is legal. But on Election Night voters decided to change that in Washington.

"Signing a piece of paper and having the government say, 'yes we bless this,' I think it is bringing in a lot of couples who were not considering this," said Tsiatsios.

A report by the Williams Institute finds that over the next three years Washington will see an economic boost of $88 million dollars to the state's economy.

Read the report here:

The report does not account for gay and lesbian wedding tourism.

"This is going to be one more reason to the tip the scales to come to Seattle or the Puget sound area," said Martin.

Marriage licenses for same sex couples will be issued beginning Dec. 6. Ahead of that date, special promotions are popping up. One example is the Edgewater Hotel which has come up with the "Plunge with Pride" wedding package for gay and lesbian engaged couples.

Source: http://www.king5.com/home/Wedding-tourism-courting-gay-and-lesbian-couples-179430821.html

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