New York Governor David Paterson is poised to introduce legislation in the state assembly tomorrow that would legalize same-sex marriage in New York, according to CNN. If the measure passes, which is still uncertain, New York would join Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa as states that sanction such unions.
Although the possibility of an entirely new market of wedding clients may seem enticing to wedding planners, a bonanza of new business is by no means a sure thing.
The same-sex wedding market will mean incremental rather than monumental business if the situation plays out in New York as it has in Canada, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2005.
Mary Crothers, head of Toronto-based event rental company Chair-Man Mills, says that same-sex weddings have increased her business by 5 percent since Canada approved the unions four years ago, a figure that has remained constant.
She finds that same-sex weddings are “very similar” to heterosexual receptions, “though they tend to be smaller and more intimate,” she notes. “We have not done any large-scale, 300-plus-type weddings.”
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