ASTORIA — It took 13 years of developing a bond, and waiting out the hurdles of state legislation, but a high-profile political couple finally took their vows Saturday night and promised to stay together, for keeps.
Daniel Hendrick, a communications director, and Jimmy Van Bramer, city councilman for Astoria, Long Island City, Maspeth, Sunnyside, and Woodside, were wed in Studio Square, an event space in Long Island City.
The ceremony was officiated by Audrey Pheffer, the Queens County City Clerk, less than a week after Van Bramer, 42, and Hendrick, 41, picked up their marriage license, following a Tuesday press conference about the economic boon gay marriages have provided in the past year to New York City.
According to the city, gay wedding ceremonies have brought $259 million to New York in the form of hotel room stays, catering, invitation purchases, wedding favors, and other services, and 8,200 same-sex couples have received their wedding licenses in New York City.
Dan Hendrick, who works for the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group, met Van Bramer in 1999 at a fundraiser for a gay community center in Queens, the couple told the New York Times.
Their political activism was an immediate attraction for both, they said in the article.
