DUXBURY, Vt. — After 17 years together, Bill Slimback and Bob Sullivan couldn’t wait another minute to get married. So they didn’t.

With Vermont’s new law allowing same-sex marriage only a minute old, they tied the knot in a midnight ceremony at a rustic lodge, becoming one of the first couples to legally wed under a law that took effect at midnight Monday.

Dressed in suits, saying their vows under a large, wall-mounted moose head, the two Whitehall, N.Y., men promised their love, exchanged rings and held hands during a modest 17-minute ceremony. Moose Meadow Lodge co-owner Greg Trulson, who’s also a Justice of the Peace, presided.

“It feels wonderful,” said Slimback, 38, an out-of-work Teamster who is taking Sullivan’s last name as his own. “It’s a day I’ve been long waiting for, and a day I truly honestly thought would never come.”

Slimback said he and Sullivan, 41, have long wanted to cement their relationship with a wedding, but since they couldn’t legally marry in New York they chose to wed even before Vermont’s same-sex marriage era officially dawned.

Vermont is one of five states that now allow same-sex couples to marry. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa are the others.

Vermont, which invented civil unions in 2000 after a same-sex couple challenged the inequality of state marriage statutes, was a mecca for same-sex couples who to that point had no way to officially recognize their relationships.

Since then, other states have allowed same-sex marriage, as did Vermont, which in April became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage through a legislative decree and not a court case.

Some couples – including many who obtained civil unions in Vermont – plan to return to the state to get married. But most are in no rush. City and town officials say only a handful of licenses had been issued to same-sex couples in anticipation of Tuesday’s start.

“We’ve waited a long time to do this – basically, our whole lives,” Slimback said Monday. “We’ve been waiting for a chance to actually solidify it,” he said. He and Sullivan said they never wanted to obtain a civil union because they believe that’s a kind of second-class recognition.

Bed-and-breakfast owner Jeff Connor was hoping for a boom in business once Vermont opened the door for same-sex couples to marry, but he’s still waiting. So far, he has only one wedding celebration planned at the 11-unit Grunberg Haus, in Duxbury. It’s for Sept. 8.

“I guess the word’s still getting around out there,” said Connor, who runs the inn with wife Linda.

Unlike the rush that followed Vermont’s adoption of civil unions in 2000, the state’s adoption of full marriage rights for same-sex couples hasn’t turned it into a same-sex marriage mecca. And it may not.

City and town clerks around Vermont have issued only a handful of licenses. The adoption of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa has diluted what was once Vermont’s monopoly – and a tourism draw.

“It’s not like what it was when civil unions went into effect,” said Manchester Town Clerk Linda Spence, a Justice of the Peace who officiated at some. “Of course, we were the first state, so that made the draw much bigger.”

In Manchester, a southern Vermont town whose picturesque old buildings, mountain vistas and upscale shopping make it a wedding destination (there were 101 last year), no same-sex couples have plunked down the $45 fee for the marriage licenses, which are good for 60 days from the date of issue.

Ditto for Brattleboro and for Montpelier, the state capital.

“I haven’t given out any yet, but I’ve heard from three couples who are going to be coming in,” Spence said. “Two of the couples – one of them is from Australia – got civil unions from me and they’re coming back for a marriage. It makes me feel good.”