[URBAN NOTE] "Grand Pride Wedding sees 110 couples wed"

[rfmcdonald]

The Canadian Press, via CBC, reported on one of the sweetest components of WorldPride, a mass wedding at Casa Loma.

Organizers forecast up to 1,000 people would attend the Grand Pride Wedding, which is believed to be the largest of its kind in North America.

The setting was Casa Loma, a palatial Toronto home built between 1911 and 1914, which has since become a popular tourist attraction and event venue.

Liberty Entertainment Group, which operates the facility and hosted the event, absorbed all the costs, with the couples only having to pay for an Ontario marriage licence.

The venue is of particular significance for Windsor, Ont., resident Aaron Bergeron, who was marrying partner Kenneth Grundy. They first visited Casa Loma when they were in Toronto two years ago.

"We were walking around in it and I was like 'how awesome would it be to get married here,"' Bergeron said. "When we found out that that's where they were having the giant ceremony, I was like, this has to happen."

Despite the significance — and scale — of the celebration, some warn that the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queers and two-spirited people (a First Nations term for individuals who are considered to be neither women nor men) still can't be taken for granted.

"This says a lot about acceptance and change in our society," said Helen Kennedy, executive director of national charity Egale, which was involved in planning the "big fat gay wedding."