It is a total solar eclipse of the mind.
More than 300 couples will be tying the knot in a mass wedding ceremony in Russellville, Arkansas, on Monday to commemorate the solar eclipse.
On Monday afternoon, just as the moon eclipses the sun, couples will say “I Do” at an Eclipse event elopement.
“This looks like the coolest wedding ever,” Carlotta Cox, one of the brides, told locals. 40/29 News Exit.
Cox and her fiancé, Matthew Holloway, from Knoxville, Tennessee, said they had been planning their eclipse wedding for two years.
“Our original destination was Maine. The total time there is about two minutes, but we were looking for a longer time frame and it was here in Arkansas,” Cox said.
Russellville, ranked by NASA as one of the best places to view the solar eclipse in the United States, is expected to be in the path of the total solar eclipse for about four minutes.
Katie Baucombe, who will marry partner Nicholas Blackwell during the eclipse event, described the upcoming wedding as a “once in a lifetime kind of thing”.
“It’s something big. There’s never been anything big or significant for either of us,” she said.
Everything you need to know about the 2024 solar eclipse
- The solar eclipse will occur on Monday, April 8th, blocking the sun from more than 180 million people in its path.
- The eclipse will spread from the Pacific coast of Mexico across North America, hitting 15 U.S. states and reaching the shores of Newfoundland, Canada.
- New Yorkers will experience a solar eclipse Monday just after 2 p.m.
- Experts say a massive solar explosion known as a coronal mass ejection is expected. Ryan French of the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado, explains that this happens when huge particles from the sun are sent flying into space.
- To avoid serious damage to the eyes, during the pre- and post-total partial eclipse stages, the phenomenon must be viewed through appropriate glasses, such as eclipse glasses or hand-held solar observing devices.
- The next total solar eclipse will occur on August 12, 2026, and will be visible to people in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia, and parts of Portugal.
Meanwhile, one of the grooms, Keegan, told ABC’s Good Morning America that it took some convincing to get his partner Courtney to agree.
“She wanted something a little more traditional. It took a while, but I finally convinced her to get married on the day of the solar eclipse,” he said.
Organizers said the Russell Building event attracted couples from all over the United States, including New York, to get married.
After the eclipse, hundreds of couples will cut their wedding cake, toast with champagne, and have their first dance.
The moon’s shadow will cross the United States on Monday afternoon, darkening the sun for millions of Americans living in the path of a total solar eclipse.
Hundreds of millions of other people will also witness the partial solar eclipse.
