NEW YORK (CNN) — A city official married the first couple in New York City to wed under the state’s new law allowing same-sex marriage Sunday.
Phyllis Siegal, 77, and Connie Kopelov, 85, were married in a chapel at the city clerk’s office as a crowd of onlookers cheered.
Hundreds of same-sex couples heard the news Friday that they made the cut in the marriage lottery that New York state instituted for Sunday, the day that the state’s Marriage Equality Act took effect.
The New York City clerk’s office has been flooded with more than 2,600 requests for marriage licenses since the wording on the online application was changed from “Groom and Bride” to “Spouse A and Spouse B.”
The office could handle less than a third of those requests — gay or straight — on Sunday, according to a press statement the city released earlier in the week. The lottery was set up to allocate 764 slots for couples who want to obtain marriage licenses and/or be married at city clerk’s offices on Sunday.
If all 764 weddings actually take place on Sunday, it will set a one-day record for the city.
CNN’s Jesse Solomon and Steve Kastenbaum contributed to this report.
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