According to AP, nearly two dozen gay couples held hands or embraced, some crying, as the priests blessed them as part of official ceremonies on Saturday leading up to the Global Day against Homophobia on May 17.
Luis Enrique Mederos and his partner for 14 years, Alain Morales, approached clergyman including Troy Perry, founder of Los Angeles' gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church, and held hands beneath a canopy while the pastors blessed their relationship.
"Luis, I give you my life," Morales said, as the crowd of 300 applauded and cheered.
"It's a step to strengthen our relationship because we're both religious, believers," said Mederos, a 47-year-old graphic designer. He said he saw the ceremony as an important step toward the eventual legalization of gay marriage in Cuba.
"It's a dream for the Cuban gay and transgender community that one day it won't be just a symbolic and we can get married, because we're also part of this changing world," he said, embracing Morales, 38.
The event was organised by the daughter of Raul Castro, the Cuban president, in a dramatic sign of the changing face of a communist island that had a long history of persecuting homosexuals under her family's rule.
Under Fidel Castro, homosexuals were often jailed as "ideological deviants" while Cubans with HIV/Aids were at one time rounded up and held in camps.
But since handing over the reins of power to her father, Ms Castro's uncle has said that his greatest regret about his time in power was the treatment of homosexuals by his regime.
