Midnight in Amsterdam: The World's First Same-Sex Weddings
At midnight on April 1, 2001, Amsterdam's mayor married four same-sex couples as the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.
It happened at the stroke of midnight — and it changed weddings everywhere.
Just after 12:00 a.m. on April 1, 2001, four couples stepped forward in Amsterdam's City Hall. Mayor Job Cohen joined them in marriage, one after another, in a joint ceremony the world had never seen. With those vows, the Netherlands became the first country on earth where two people of the same sex could legally marry.
"There are two reasons to rejoice," Cohen told the newlyweds, as pink champagne and pink cake were served. "You are celebrating your marriage, and you are also celebrating your right to be married."
The law behind the ceremony changed a single sentence in the Dutch civil marriage statute. It now read: "A marriage can be contracted by two people of different or the same sex." One sentence — and centuries of exclusion ended.
The road there had been long. In the mid-1980s, gay rights activists led by Henk Krol, then editor of the newspaper Gay Krant, began pressing the Dutch government to open marriage to same-sex couples. In 1995 parliament created a commission to study the idea, and in 1997 it decided that marriage rights should be extended. The final bill passed the House of Representatives 109 to 33 and cleared the Senate in December 2000; two days later the Queen signed it into law, alongside a companion adoption bill. Both took effect on April 1, 2001.
The new law gave same-sex couples the full package: the right to marry, to divorce, and to adopt children. At that first midnight ceremony, four couples — including Gert Kasteel and Dolf Pasker — converted their registered partnerships into full civil marriages. Later that month, 300 more registered couples did the same, and 82 unregistered couples married outright.
Not everyone celebrated. The Christian Democratic Party had opposed the bill in parliament, and conservative religious groups continued to object. But the Dutch public broadly embraced the change — and the world was watching. Some 20,000 same-sex couples have married in the Netherlands since that night, according to Statistics Netherlands.
Twenty-five years later, the anniversary was still being marked. In the early hours of March 31, 2026, three more same-sex couples married at Amsterdam City Hall just after midnight, in a ceremony honoring the night it all began — officiated by Mayor Femke Halsema and attended by Rob Jetten, the country's first openly gay prime minister.
Why it matters: the Netherlands' example proved the sky wouldn't fall. Within a few years Belgium and Spain followed; then Canada, South Africa, and eventually dozens more. By the 25th anniversary in 2026, nearly 40 countries had legalized same-sex marriage. Every one of those wedding days traces back to a midnight ceremony in Amsterdam, four couples, and one rewritten sentence.
Photo: Jeffpw, CC BY 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons).
