LI businesses see boomlet in same-sex weddings

Carlyle on the Green in Farmingdale will hold a Marriage for All event in late July offering free services for same-sex couples after their marriages became legal in New York State this past week.

The event -- providing officiants to perform rites at the venue for free for all couples with a license -- is just one sign of the same-sex marriage measure's  ripple effects, including a new market for the Long Island wedding industry, according to business owners who are scrambling to sell their services.

"We're actually going to start advertising," said George Regini Jr., the owner of Giorgio's in Baiting Hollow. "A lot of our plans are gearing toward different periodicals that have to do with gay marriage and gay lifestyles."

Managers at several Long Island banquet halls and catering facilities said they have received numerous calls from same-sex couples interested in booking their venues. The New York State Senate passed a same-sex marriage bill Friday, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo quickly signed it into law.

George Abazis, director of operations at Mediterranean Manor Caterers in East Patchogue, said he had already booked three same-sex weddings -- one for this year and two  for 2012.

There are about 3,600 same-sex couples living on Long Island, according to the 2009 American Community Survey.

One of those couples, Trish Wicks, 46, and M Kalischewski, 52, of Nesconset, married in Massachusetts in 2009, and they are planning to get hitched all over again.

"I was born and raised here in Nesconset," Wicks said. "I live a minute and a half from the house I grew up in . . . It bothered me that we had to go to Massachusetts to do this."

She said she is set on having her wedding festivities at Oheka Castle in Huntington, where their reception was held two years ago.

New York could have an economic gain of $310 million in the first three years from wedding spending, marriage license fees and tax revenue, according to a 2011 study released by a group of Democratic state senators who voted for same-sex marriage.

But some experts caution the economic boost connected to legalizing gay marriage could be overestimated because nearby states already permit such marriages and many same-sex New York couples already have licenses from other states.

When same-sex couples got married in Massachusetts or in California, there were a lot of people from neighboring or far-flung states who would come and spend money, said Gary Gates, a scholar at the Williams Institute -- a sexual-orientation policy research institute in California.

"In New York's case it's not clear that they'll quite benefit as much from it as our prior estimates because most of the states surrounding already offer marriage for same-sex couples, Gates said."

According to a Williams Institute survey, there are already about 9,000 legally married gay couples in New York State, about 21 percent of the 42,600 same-sex couples the American Community Survey found residing here in 2009.

Many Long Island wedding venues already cater to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities by hosting commitment ceremonies and union parties for same-sex couples.

Steve Carlyle, owner of Carlyle on the Green, said his business has hosted about eight commitment ceremonies in the past couple of years. The date of the Marriage for All event is to be announced later this week.

Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced an "NYC I Do" campaign Monday, which will promote the five boroughs as a key destination for same-sex weddings.