Jeri and Amy Andrews laugh as they wait in line outside of the King County Recorder's Office on Dec. 5, 2012, in Seattle, Washington. David Ryder/Getty Images

Same-sex weddings made up 17 percent of marriages in Washington in the past year, the first year such marriages were legal in the state, officials said this week.

About 7,071 same-sex couples got married in Washington between Dec. 6, 2012, and the most recent complete month of data, September 2013. There were 42,408 total marriages in the state during that time, the Washington State Department of Health reported on Wednesday.

Same-sex marriages became legal in the state last December, after voters approved a measure in November legalizing the unions. Along with Maryland and Maine, Washington became one of the first states to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote.

So far, most of Washington's same-sex marriages – 62 percent – were between two women.

Washington is one of 15 states plus the District of Columbia where gay marriage is legal, but few have the kind of detailed data Washington released this week, in part because gay marriage is so new in most places.

According to the 2010 Census, there were about 152,335 same-sex married couples and 440,989 same-sex unmarried couples in the United States.

In Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, the state’s Department of Public Health said that during the first year and a half after same-sex marriage became legal, 8,181 same-sex couples got married. Between May 2004 and the end of 2012, 22,406 gay couples got married in Massachusetts.