THE anvil's future is pink. Gretna Green - the Border village where eloping English couples once flocked to take advantage of Scotland's liberal marriage laws - is aiming at the gay wedding market to boost flagging business.
It is hoped that the tradition of allowing couples to tie the knot there will attract a new stream of lovers.
The move comes in the wake of figures showing that conventional weddings in the village have fallen by a fifth since 2004.
The drop
is blamed largely on the rise of couples going overseas to marry.
Now, Dumfries and Galloway Council is in talks with the local tourism agency about plans to attract more civil partnerships.
A source at VisitScotland Dumfries and Galloway said: "We are preparing guides and working on proposals to step things up for general weddings.
"As far as civil partnerships are concerned, it's something we have been talking to the registrar about building up for the future."
So far, almost half of all the civil partnerships in Dumfries and Galloway have taken place at Gretna Green, with the village hosting 46 of the 94 ceremonies since the law was introduced in 2005.
Dumfries and Galloway is also the region where female civil partnerships most heavily outnumber those involving males, with 60 female 'weddings' compared with 34 for the men. In most of the rest of Scotland, most gay weddings involve men.
Local wedding organisers have already seen demand from gay couples.
Rhona Lynn runs the Gretna Wedding Bureau with her husband Alister.
She said: "Gretna does seem to be attracting women for civil partnerships. We have had three couples in just the past month and they were all women, and we have more booked in.
"They are of different ages and it's lovely to see them."
Audra Glendinning, of Gretna One-Stop Wedding, said: "It's definitely something that's coming in. We have done three or four civil partnerships so far, although we do still have more bookings for 'conventional' weddings."
She added: "I think Gretna still has that romance, and the idea of running away to get married is still a very powerful one, even though the law has been changed now for years. Gretna has a very strong romantic image."
Calum Irving, director of gay rights group Stonewall Scotland, said: "I have long thought that civil partnerships would be a great opportunity for Scotland. It's good to see that Dumfries and Galloway have realised that it's a great opportunity."
The 'pink pound' - gay spending power - is worth an estimated £70bn a year.
A spokesman for Dumfries and Galloway Council said: "Civil partnerships certainly seem to be taking off at Gretna, with 2007 on course to record the highest figure yet.
"Conventional marriages continue to hover around the 5,000 mark each year."
Figures released last month by the Registrar-General for Scotland show that the number of marriages at Gretna Green fell by 10%, from 4,926 in 2005 to 4,434 in 2006.
That represents a 20% drop from the peak of 5,555 weddings in 2004.
One of the weddings was that of Scottish socialite and model Honor Fraser.
Gretna Green became a popular destination for eloping couples in 1753, when English law required both bride and groom to be 21 or over before they could marry without the consent of both sets of parents.
At that time in Scotland, boys could marry at 14 and girls at 12, with neither requiring parental consent.
And a marriage carried out in Scotland was valid south of the Border.
Gretna Green was the first stop over the Border for stagecoaches and became a focus for eloping couples.
The blacksmith and his anvil became popular as, under Scots law, anyone had the authority to conduct an "irregular marriage".
Meanwhile, newly published official statistics show that, for the first time, there are more gay weddings involving women than men.
In the first three months of 2007, there were 63 partnerships involving women, compared to 49 for men.
Previously men had always outnumbered women.
The Western Isles is the only part of Scotland to have had no civil partnerships so far, with Orkney hosting just the one ceremony.
mmacleod@scotlandonsunday.comLegal changes in Scotland's gay history
Although homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967, Scotland did not follow suit until 1980, and then only for males over 21.
The age of homosexual consent was brought down to 18 in 1994 and then reduced to 16 in 2000, to make it the same age as for heterosexuals in the wake of fears by the government that having different ages of consent might be open to legal challenge on equality grounds.
Scotland's first "gay wedding" took place on December 20, 2005 involving John Maguire from West Lothian and partner Laurence Scott-Mackay from Sutherland, who went on to have their union blessed by Bishop Richard Holloway.
In the rest of that year 84 civil partnerships took place.
In 2006, there were a further 1,047 partnerships.
Scotland's "gay wedding capital" is Edinburgh, which has hosted 620 ceremonies, compared to Glasgow which has had 452, despite the overall population of Glasgow being much larger.
