Sydney Festival set to host a huge wedding reception to celebrate legalising gay marriage

Australia is set to celebrate their first official day of legalized same-sex marriage with a mass wedding service at this year’s Sydney Festival.

Same-sex marriage was only legalized in Australia on December 7 last year when it joined 25 other countries that recognized the union of same-sex couples.

Rebecca Davies and her partner Paula Van Bruggen kiss as they celebrate in the crowd (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

The theme of the service will be ‘love is love’, the same phrase that was seen on thousands of banners as people fought to legalize gay marriage throughout Australia.

At the ceremony, several same-sex couples will come together and marry under the name love is love to show that their commitment for one another is exactly the same as that of husband and wife.

Royal Assent was given to the same-sex marriage law on 8 December following on from a historic postal vote in 2017 which saw more than 61 percent of Australians vote Yes for same-sex marriage.

Australians celebrate legalizing gay marriage in Melbourne (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

A 30-day waiting period for registered same-sex couples to marry went into effect after the bill was passed.

However, the first of two gay weddings commenced on December 16.

Some couples had sought an exemption from the waiting period given their circumstances.

Lauren Price and Amy Laker were given permission to marry before the waiting period as they had family who had travelled to Sydney especially for the occasion, however, this was only allowed for those under difficult circumstances.

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