Contest winners tie knot at the Don

The Millennium Couple may be the first to hold a same-sex wedding at the Don CeSar.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000

ST. PETE BEACH -- The Unitarian minister strode up the aisle Saturday, her dress nearly hidden behind a royal blue robe.

Then came the flower girl, 5-year-old Samantha McGannon, her brown hair piled high and curly behind a silver tiara. Pink rose petals dropped from her fingers.

More music from the string trio, and finally, after a brief delay: The Couple.

Kimberly Deanne Acquaviva wore a simple white wedding gown. Kimberly Marie McGannon sported a cream-colored Armani suit. Each held a large bouquet of pink roses.

The brides, nervous and smiling, clutched tightly to their escort, McGannon's brother, Charles, who walked between them.

Thus began what is believed to be the first same-sex wedding at the 73-year-old Don CeSar Beach Resort and Spa. But that is not the St. Petersburg couple's only distinction.

In December, they became something of an Internet sensation when they were selected from 5,000 entrants as the "Millennium Couple" in a contest sponsored by The Knot, a leading wedding Web site based in New York City.

Acquaviva and McGannon were the top vote-getters among the site's visitors, coming in well ahead of four other soon-to-be-wed finalists, all of them heterosexual couples. They won for the poignancy of their story, which recounts how Acquaviva's mother died four years ago, but not before telling her daughter to marry for love and not worry what others think. Jean Ellen Acquaviva was remembered Saturday with a candle that burned during the ceremony.

Since the contest, the couple has received hundreds of congratulatory e-mails from straight and gay people throughout the country. Many of them were on display in a binder at the reception on the hotel's pool deck.

A married lesbian couple in Largo e-mailed good wishes and said they had just had a son. They offered advice on obstetrics and fertility for when Acquaviva and McGannon have children.

But back to the wedding.

Acquaviva and McGannon walked to the base of the grand white staircase that spills into the Don's central courtyard.

The hotel had beefed up security, lest the media or other curiosity seekers disrupt things. But the only threat was a snake that slithered under mounds of pink and white impatiens, noticed only by hotel workers.

A knot of swimsuited onlookers at the hotel pool watched quizzically from behind a gate, and one man chortled loudly when it became clear that Charles McGannon was not the groom. The hotel's catering director walked over and politely asked the group to respect the ceremony.

Acquaviva and McGannon read their own vows, each moving the other to tears. But their words remained private, drowned out by the noise of rustling palms.

Many of the onlookers clapped along with the 30 invited guests when Acquaviva and McGannon kissed and recessed toward the pool as a newly married couple.

Married, that is, in the spiritual and religious sense. Not legally.

As two men from Redington Shores had said in their congratulatory e-mail: "Please do not forget that we gay and lesbian couples have NO legal rights . . . our relationships are virtually useless according to the state and local governments."

At their reception, the couple laughed good-naturedly about the onlookers, knowing many people will not understand their relationship and their decision to be married. They plan to have children.

A Buddhist prayer in their wedding program seemed to address the issue head-on, which said in part: "May all those who say bad things to me or cause me any other harm, and those who mock and insult me, have the fortune to fully awaken."

Said Acquaviva: "I would say to them that all that matters is we love each other, and nothing we have done here today is any different from any other wedding."

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