Goin' To The Chapel (Hartford Business Journal)
Monday, November 17, 2008
By: Jason Millman

As same-sex couples line up to wed, bakers, florists, venues see opportunity Some saw the legalization of gay marriage in Connecticut last month as a step toward equality. Audra Weisel, a pastry chef in Avon, and many other business owners also saw it as a business opportunity.

As same-sex couples started to walk down the aisle last week, the state’s wedding industry expects a boost in business from a new client pool lining up to get married.

“I should pretty much double my business. Until recently, I could only do wedding cakes for part of the population,” joked Weisel, who designs personalized, nontraditional wedding cakes.

The legalization of same-sex marriages on Oct. 10 provided new opportunities for Connecticut’s wedding industry, which includes businesses ranging from florists to jewelers to reception halls. While it is still too soon to expect a large uptick in wedding business — Nov. 12 was the first date same-sex weddings were allowed — a large number of gay marriages are expected to occur within the first year of legalization, said Anne Stanbeck, executive director of Love Makes A Family, a nonprofit organization behind the push to legalize gay marriage.

“There’ll be a burst of activity in the first year,” Stanbeck said.

MyWedding.com saw traffic for its Connecticut page increase more than 20 percent in October over last year, a rise that marketing director Robert Johnsen attributed to gay marriage.

After being together for 14 years, Chery Hensel and Eniko Mikle couldn’t wait any longer to get married. The Fairfield couple exchanged their vows in front of a Justice of the Peace on the first day of same-sex weddings.

They had a small get together to mark the occasion with friends and family, but they’re planning a much bigger celebration a few months from now. Mikle, a member of the state’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender chamber of commerce, knows gay marriage will benefit the state’s businesses.

 Capturing Business

“We realize economically it’s going to have an impact on the state, from wedding cake decorators to caterers and to facilities opening their doors to a new group of folks,” said Mikle, a founding member of the Connecticut Alliance for Business Opportunities, or CABO.

Joe Marfuggi, president and CEO of Riverfront Recapture Inc. in Hartford, said Riverfront has taken out advertisements in several gay publications over the past month to advertise its reception hall. He said he hopes the slowing economy doesn’t cause couples to cut back on their celebration plans.

“It’s probably too early to tell if the economy will have an impact. Weddings tend to be in a different category,” Marfuggi said. “Hopefully, you do it only once, so maybe this isn’t the area where you cut back.”

When it comes to planning her wedding celebration, it matters to Mikle that she finds businesses supportive of gay marriage.

“It’s very important,” she said. “It’s certainly included in the criteria.”

For the past month, Love Makes A Family has been compiling a list of gay-friendly wedding businesses. The Rainbow Wedding Network, a national listing of gay-friendly businesses, will hold a wedding expo in Shelton next month to give couples the chance to plan out their celebrations in an environment that they know will be accommodating to their needs.

 1,700 Civil Unions

CABO director Kim Wanamaker said she has seen a positive reaction from the business community to the state Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision to allow gay marriage. CABO, a year-old organization that has more than 150 members across the state, has not actively recruited businesses owned by non-gays, but Wanamaker said the group has started to receive broader interest.

Stanbeck said it is difficult to project how many gay couples will marry in Connecticut, but she expects many of the 1,700 couples who have entered into civil unions since they were legalized in 2005 will now seek marriage licenses. Out-of-state couples are also expected to make the trip to Connecticut for a marriage ceremony, which may bode well for the state to become a destination wedding location.

Matthew Malok and William Whittaker of Georgia will be one of those couples making that trip. Malok, who grew up in Stratford and met Whittaker in New Haven 35 years ago, said the couple wanted to get married in front of family and friends even though the marriage will not be valid in Georgia.

“It’s a symbolic thing,” he said. “We realized we never thought of marriage in our lifetime, so we’re excited about that prospect. We don’t delude ourselves to believe it will be recognized in Georgia.”

Increased wedding business will also have a positive impact on the state’s revenue. In California, a university study in June projected the legalization of same-sex marriage would mean significant dollars to the state, but gay marriage was overturned by a ballot proposition on Election Day.

The study, published by the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, estimated legalizing gay marriage would result in $63.8 million in government tax and fee revenue over three years.