Same-Sex Celebrating: Upscale Options For Tying The Knot And Honeymooning
Since New York State legalized same-sex marriage in July, cities from Niagara Falls to Albany have been positioning themselves as the ideal place to tie the knot or celebrate your freshly performed nuptials. New York City, of course, has more options than anywhere else, and NYC & Company, the city’s convention and visitor bureau, has put together guidelines and info on its site. But whether you’re looking to stay in the Big Apple or spread the joy around, scores of hotels are ready to help make your dreams come true.
The Big Apple and Beyond
A number of hotels in New York City have created same-sex wedding and honeymoon packages, as part of the city’s tourism-building “I Do” campaign. The Setai, one of the city’s newest boutique hotels, offers a “Yours Truly” gay wedding package that starts at $350 per person, and includes use of dressing rooms for the brides or grooms, plus two one-hour Swedish massages at Auriga Spa, a four-hour premium open-bar, cocktail hour with four canapés, champagne toast, three-course dinner and cake cutting.
The InterContinental New York Times Square (pictured above) has put together a “Something New, Something True” event package, priced at $395 per person for a minimum of 40 and maximum of 225 attendees, including a one-hour cocktail service, four-course dinner with choice of entrée, sommelier-selected red and white wine, wedding cake and five hours of live musical entertainment. The happy couple may also opt to stay in the sumptuous, 1,500-square-foot Manhattan Suite for a special rate starting at $1,200, which includes breakfast in bed.
Same-sex couples who say their vows by December 31 at the W Union Square, meanwhile, will get a pretty sweet honeymoon as part of the deal — the hotel will throw in two free nights as a honeymoon at the W Retreat and Spa in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
Just outside the city, on Long Island, the Glen Cove Mansion Hotel has introduced a “rainbow edition” of their iPad wedding package announced this spring. Couples married in 2011 who hold their celebration at the Mansion will receive a new iPad 2, outfitted with a rainbow case and loaded with their wedding photos. Glen Cove Mansion is also waving the ceremony fee and including champagne at the wedding event, whether it’s a ceremony or the reception.
Sure to be offering gay wedding, reception and honeymoon deals is the OUT NYC , a 105-room gay “urban resort” currently under construction on 42nd Street. The property will include a nightclub operated by nightlife guru John Blair, as well as multiple dining and event venues.
Beyond the Big Apple
The so-called Sunshine State may be nowhere close to allowing same-sex weddings, but two destinations here — Fort Lauderdale and the Miami/Miami Beach area — are doing their part to attract gay couples to their sunny shores. The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau has launched a new Webpage to help recently hitched couples plan their honeymoon. Through September 15, the organization is running a contest that will award two getaways: a five-night stay at the Royal Palms Resort & Spa, the largest gay resort in the area, and a three-night stay at the Atlantic Resort & Spa, a boutique-style beachfront hotel.
Same-sex couples who haven’t actually gotten married yet might want to check out the Conrad Miami, a luxury hotel in Miami’s downtown/Brickell area that has created a package specifically for people looking for the right moment and environment to pop the question. The Down-On-One-Knee package, which starts at $595, includes a sunset dinner for two, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries and other amenities — and, most importantly perhaps, a “Down-On-One-Knee” personalized pillow, which can be used in a variety of settings, including aboard a helicopter, on a dramatic rooftop or in a private cabana at a swanky South Beach lounge.
Options for celebrating a Big Apple-inspired wedding go far beyond the U.S. borders. In Italy, the Ragosta Hotels Collection has responded to New York's recent same-sex marriage legislation by introducing a Rainbow Getaway Honeymoon deal, available at the Relais Paradiso and Hotel Raito, both on the Amalfi coast, and LaPlage Resort in Taormina, Sicily. Prices start at 330 Euro per room, per night. And in Mexico, gay-friendly luxury hotels like Xcanatun — a gorgeous property set on a former plantation — offer the opportunity to customize commitment ceremonies, receptions and honeymoons by blending indigenous Mayan traditions with a decidedly forward-thinking approach to what it means to be a couple today.
