Gay couples tie knot in 'Summer of Love'

Serenaded by a gay men’s chorus, showered with rose petals and toasted with champagne, hundreds of tearful same-sex couples were married across California in what some are calling the state’s new Summer of Love.

Wearing everything from T-shirts to tuxedos and lavish gowns, they rushed down to county clerks’ offices to obtain marriage licences and exchange vows on the first full day that gay marriage became legal in California by order of the state’s highest court.