BREAKING: City Vows to Marry Every Couple on Sunday Who Entered Wedding Lottery

823 couples just won a different kind of New York Lottery

When New York City recently received a whopping 2,600 marriage license requests, with over half of those indicating they wanted to wed this Sunday (the first day of legal same-sex marriage) they started a lottery to determine who would be one of the 764 couples they could accomodate. The lottery was open from noon Tuesday until noon today, and 823 couples applied. This evening, the city said they're going to accomodate the extra 59 couples and wed each and every one, according to The Advocate.

We just got off the phone with a lesbian couple who'd entered the lottery, and the Manhattan Marriage Bureau clerk's office called them at 8:00 PM to give them the good news. So apparently, not only is the city making individual phone calls, but they're staying after hours to do so.

As with most things New York, the Borough of Manhattan saw the highest demand, with some of the outer boroughs not hitting their maximum. The Advocate reports that Manhattan is being stretched, and some couples will be be offered space in one of the four other boroughs. (We'll see whether a Manhattanite couple set on exchanging vows on Worth Street thinks getting hitched a day late or on Staten Island is the bigger insult.)

Also, shockingly, it seems that the city, which already opened the marriage bureaus on a Sunday, will stay open until everyone in the lottery gets wed.

Via Julie Bolcer of the Advocate.

sthrasher@villagevoice.com | @steven_thrasher