A group of 10 gay and lesbian couples in Washington, D.C., wed Saturday at an event meant to set a new Guinness World Record for the largest mass marriage ceremony.

The event drew a fraction of the 400 expected couples, but organizer Mike Wilkinson told  The Washington Post he was glad he organized the ceremony and reception at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. The standing record is 168 couples.

"There are going to be 30 people that I can say I helped make their day unforgettable," he said in the article. "As an event that's never really been tried with the GLBT community before, we had no idea how to project what the demand was. But I think that we also have gotten a lot of leads and a lot of people have noticed us as a company."

For photos of the event, see the following pages.