A PINK chocolate fountain greeted people who attended the first gay wedding fair to be held in the North-East.

Stalls were set out in The Centre for Life in Newcastle, which hosted the event to help people celebrate same-sex civil partnerships.

As with traditional marriage ceremonies, advice was available to couples on hiring photographers, cakes, cars and flowers.

The fair yesterday also had more unusual services on, including a harpist, a caricaturist, a magician and a singer.

However, it was the pink chocolate fountain that proved the centre of attention.

It was brought by John English, 40, of Charlie's Chocolate Factory, who added food dye to 20lbs of white chocolate to create the pink effect.

He said: "My wife and I have some gay friends and when we said we were doing a gay wedding fair they said we had to use pink chocolate in our fountain.

"The chocolate taste just the same and the reaction has been fantastic. When people came in the room, they went 'wow'."

Civil partnerships put gay relationships on the same legal footing as heterosexual unions, with partners being granted the same rights on pensions, tax, housing and tenancy.

About 40 couples, gay men, lesbians and some heterosexuals attended the event.

Philip Douglas, 20, from Middlesbrough is a student living in Newcastle. He attended the event with his boyfriend, Simon Hatfield, 21, who is a radio traffic news broadcaster.

Mr Douglas said civil partnerships were welcomed by younger members of the gay community, but said some older homosexuals were cynical about "straight" companies offering services to couples because they felt they were being taken advantage of.

He said: "People will indulge themselves now the law has changed and they will celebrate the fact that things are fairer and they will want to show off a bit with things like this.

"Many couples have been partners for a long time and they have found it a lot harder to be accepted and tolerated in the past.

"Some think the ceremony is just a piece of paper and things like this are just a way of making money out of them by exploiting them."

Organisers predict gay wedding fairs will eventually merge with services for heterosexual couples within the next year.