After Steven and Ciro were married in a legal civil ceremony on June 17, 2008, they immediately began to plan their wedding celebration. They wanted to schedule it before the upcoming November 4th election where Proposition 8 was on the ballot, and so the weekend of October 3-5 was selected, with The Queen Mary in Long Beach, California as the venue of choice. The plan: to offer a weekend of festivities to out-of-town guests: a Friday afternoon cocktail reception in the ship’s lounge, a Friday night “Wedding’s Eve Dinner” at Sir Winston’s Restaurant shipboard, a Saturday afternoon on-deck Wedding Ceremony performed by the Ship’s Captain with an evening reception in the Queen’s Salon, and a Sunday brunch in the fabulous Grand Salon. Local friends and family were invited to Saturday only, and many of them opted to stay Saturday evening. The list of out-of-towners included immediate and extended family, and many friends. Most of them hailed from the NYC area, and some traveled from Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, and North Carolina. C&S committed to ten hotel rooms on the Queen Mary. A Wedding Teaser DVD was included in the invitation package. This Teaser proved so effective that the hotel reservation grew to 30 rooms! The Wedding’s Eve Dinner had 40 out-of-town guests in attendance, and the Saturday events had 160. Who knew!