BERLIN (AP) — A couple from Berlin has become the first in Germany to celebrate a same-sex wedding, after a new law called "marriage for all" came into force Sunday.

Karl Kreile, 59, and Bodo Mende, 60, were married Sunday morning at the town hall in Schoeneberg, a Berlin district that has long been a center of gay life in the German capital.

The law change followed a free vote in Parliament in June, making Germany the 23rd country worldwide to allow same-sex marriages.

Previously, same-sex couples had only been able to enter into registered partnerships that granted them fewer rights than heterosexual couples who married.