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| A rainbow of love blossoms on the Coastside By Carina Woudenberg [ Special to the Review ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 1:01 PM PDT “I’m as giddy as a high school girl who has her date for the prom!” exclaimed Michael Castellana the night before his marriage to David Turpen. The couple, both residents of Atlanta, came to Half Moon Bay to be married on Aug. 11 — the very day that marked 30 years of their life together as a couple. “It’s marvelous, absolutely,” Turpen said following the ceremony at the Hastings House garden in Miramar. “I don’t think either one of us thought this would ever happen.” Since the legalization of same-sex marriages in California this May, couples from all over the country have come to the Coastside to exchange their vows. “We are a great getaway for everybody,” said Charise McHugh, president and CEO of the Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce and Visitors’ Bureau. “It’s very romantic and we have a variety of wedding vendors. You can have a Western wedding on a ranch, a barefoot wedding on the beach or a wedding with all the trimmings at an inn.” Many of the coast’s more traditional wedding destinations including the San Benito House, the Mill Rose Inn, Hastings House and Oceano Hotel and Spa report hosting same-sex weddings this summer. For Coastsider Christie Hardwick, who marrried her wife in Massachusetts two years ago, the legalization of gay marriages sparked a business opportunity. She is the guiding light behind Half Moon Bay Gay Weddings. “I literally created a Web site that day, put an ad up on Craigslist and started handing out cards,” Hardwick said. Having lived as a minister on the coast for a year, Hardwick has performed marriages for straight couples and several commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples. Since the California court decision in May that overturned a ban on gay marriage, she has married one same-sex couple at the San Francisco courthouse. Vacation time has prevented Hardwick from marrying a few couples this month but she has made connections with Coastside businesses such as the Mill Rose Inn for referrals and expects to perform more wedding ceremonies in the fall. “It’s been a joyous thing to do,” Hardwick said. “I’m excited to be in Half Moon Bay, it’s a great place and I’ve been waiting to be involved.” Christa and Bess, who asked not to be identified by their last names because Christa is a schoolteacher in another state and not out to her students, came to Half Moon Bay earlier this month to marry at the San Benito House. “It was perfect,” Christa said. “We got to stay in a bed-and-breakfast and get married in a garden.” “Half Moon Bay was a great place,” Bess said. “It was great to be able to contribute to a local economy.” Rev. Judith Dempsey Malear of Pacific Coast Weddings married both Christa and Bess and Castellana and Turpen and says this is a joyous time for many people. Regarding the same-sex marriages she’s performed, she says it’s really not any different than a straight wedding except “with different wording,” she said. “It’s a very beautiful wording actually.” Malear says she sees the coast as an ideal place for weddings. “The whole community is very friendly, open and caring,” she said. Malear has married five same-sex couples on the coast so far with two more on the way. Malear says she plans to create a Web site that caters toward gay and lesbian weddings. Half Moon Bay couple JoAnn Semones and Julie Barrow chose to have their wedding — scheduled for this weekend — at The Sherman, a ship-turned-restaurant, located in Burlingame. Semones and Barrow held a small commitment ceremony in their home 16 years ago and say they thought this was a good time to make a statement by getting married. “With the events arising in San Francisco we made the decision that this was the right thing to do,” Semones said. “For us,” Barrow added, “because we’ve been together so long, we feel like we’ve already been married. In my eyes, it’s a renewal of vows.” The couples expressed concern over Proposition 8, which if passed in November, would forbid same-sex couples from marrying. However, most said they believed the law wouldn’t change. “I can not imagine that it would pass in California,” said Turpen “How can you put prejudice in the law in this country?” |