Greenport Same-Sex Couple Will Wed on Friday Morning

Greenport residents Kathleen Sampson and Katie Farrell never planned on getting married — ever.

But the opportunity to tie the knot in the state where they live was just too good to pass up. A same-sex couple for 25 years, Sampson and Farrell were one of the first couples to obtain a marriage license on the first day it was available at

The timing, they said, was based around the start of the school year — both teach in New York City — and school starts on Labor Day. They will be getting married at Southold Town Justice Court at 9 a.m. on Friday. The became a New York State law on Sunday, July 24.

“We were not in a rush to be the first, really,” Farrell said.

Farrell said that they didn’t want to be the first people to get married — that was never their intention. Just under 10 same-sex couples have registered to get married in Southold since July 24.

“We’ve been together for 25 years,” she said. “This is more of a political statement, and a celebration of the fact.”

The couple will have a party — they hesitate to call it a wedding reception — at a restaurant in New York City in September.

Sampson, 57, is from Peekskill. She is a teacher of English as a second language and math. She went to New York State University and majored in art. Both have taught at Liberty High School in Chelsea for over two decades.

Farrell, 52, went to Smith College, majored in comparative literature and met her partner in 1986 at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Both Farrell and Sampson taught English in Istanbul, Turkey, together after college.

To get married in the state where they live is important to both women.

“A lot of people we know went to California when it was legal there a while ago,” Sampson said. “But getting married in your own state is a way of saying thank you for passing this law — and a way of letting people know that we are here.”

Farrell added that the state law will help change things on a federal level — something they’d like to see sooner than later.

“This is just a stepping stone,” she said. “The fact that the state senator who represents us voted no is disappointing.”

As a same-sex couple, Farrell and Sampson said that they are secure financially — they squared up that aspect of their lives long ago and are not getting married to improve their financial health.

Sampson said that everyone they’ve come across has had nothing but positive things to say about the couples’ upcoming union. A Greenport jeweler even gave them wedding bands.

“This is not a traditional wedding, but we toyed around with the idea and were looking at some rings in the back of Lydia’s Antiques,” Sampson said. “We don’t usually go into Lydia’s and knew that the woman behind the counter was older and married — but she said she thought that our marriage was fabulous.

“I asked her how much the rings were, and she just gave them to us,” Sampson continued. “’This is my gift to you,’ she said. She was very happy for us.”