Same-sex couples marry at Southbank’s mass ceremony
By Sam Rigby
70 couples married in mass ceremonies at London’s Southbank Centre over the weekend.
55 mixed-sex couples and 15 same-sex couples tied the knot to celebrate the centre’s Festival of Love, BBC News reports.
The event was held to mark the legalisation of same-sex marriage in England and Wales earlier in the year.
Two ceremonies were held on Saturday (August 30) and another two on Sunday (August 31). Couples paid £1,000 for the ceremony, which included a registrar, photography and an evening reception.
The couples could also invite up to 40 guests for an additional £1,000.
Jude Kelly, the Southbank Centre’s artistic director, said: “We were just thinking how do we celebrate love here… and so we came up with this notion that if we invited all couples, gay or straight, old or young, to celebrate their vows together that would be a wonderful symbolic act here.”
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