Two German men made history on Sunday by emerging the first gay couple to marry in Germany, the same day a new law came into force putting gay and lesbian couples on equal right.
Karl Kreile and his partner Bodo Mende, exchanged their vows at the town hall in Schöneberg, Berlin, three months after lawmakers voted to give Germany’s roughly 94,000 same-sex couples the right to marry.
The grooms reportedly made a ground entering to the popular "Wedding March" by 19th-century German composer Felix Mendelssohn, before saying their vows and signing the marriage documents.
Kreile, 59, said it was an "incredible honor" to be the first same-sex couple to marry in Germany, noting that he and Mende, 60, had been campaigning for gay rights for decades. The couple whose cake featured a rainbow flag and the words "marriage for all" plan to hold a small reception and fly to Vienna later in the week for a five-day honeymoon.
According to LA Times, about 60 guests and several journalists were in attendance at the Schoeneberg town hall's "Golden Room" to witness the marriage of Karl Kreile and Bodo Mende.
On achieving the milestone, Gordon Holland, a registrar in Berlin's Schoeneberg district said: "We're making a single exception to fire a symbolic starter pistol because same-sex marriages are possible from today.'
According to him, it was appropriate for Schoeneberg to hold the first same-sex wedding in the country because it has long been a center of gay life in the German capital.
The European country has now become the 15th European nation to legalise gay marriage.
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