Think of it as the Summer of Love meets the Gold Rush.
When same-sex unions become legal in California later this month, throngs of gay and lesbian couples, both from in the state and around the country, are expected to hasten to the altar.
Beyond the hearts and flowers of the occasions are monetary realities that have everyone from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to tourism officials to bakers, jewelers and DJs anticipating a windfall. A multitude of weddings is likely to be good business at a time when many folks are in belt-tightening mode.
"Clearly, there will be a boomlet," said Robert Witeck, CEO of Witeck-Combs Communications, a Washington firm that specializes in marketing to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender customers. "I expect that couples (who travel to the state to wed) will spend at least a week to 10 days to really experience California, and not just dip their feet in like going to Las Vegas and getting hitched."
Same-sex couples could spend about $692 million on weddings in California over the next three years, according to a report from the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law. That assumes that about half of committed gay couples in the state, plus a percentage of gay couples from elsewhere in the nation, will choose to wed, and uses fairly modest assumptions about what they'll spend on their weddings and travel. And it doesn't even include what friends and families traveling to California for the weddings might spend.
"It's going to mean something significant to the wedding industry - florists, photographers, caterers - all those folks who depend on that kind of business," said report author M.V. Lee Badgett, an economist who is research director of the Williams Institute. "They will get a big boost at a tough time."
Tourism boost likely
Tourism should also get a boost, especially California destinations that can claim romantic cachet as a great place to tie the knot. San Francisco, with its gay-friendly reputation, its history-making City Hall same-sex weddings in 2004, and its centerpiece role in the California Supreme Court ruling, is clearly angling for that crown.
"We think San Francisco really stands to gain a lot from this," said Joe D'Alessandro, CEO of the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, which is creating a campaign to convince gay and lesbian couples to wed in the city with the tagline, "Celebrate liberty, justice and marriage for all. Come to the city where it all began."
Unlike the 2004 San Francisco weddings, which participants knew could be cut off at any time, last month's court decision stands at least until election day in November, when voters will decide on a resolution that would ban same-sex marriage. Because the initiative doesn't spell out that the ban would be retroactive, most experts say same-sex weddings that occur this summer would remain legal no matter what voters say.
"This gives people the time to plan a normal wedding, to bring their families, to plan something they've been dreaming about for decades," said D'Alessandro, who is planning a Labor Day weekend wedding with his partner - in San Francisco, of course.
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