It’s a total eclipse of the heart.
More than 300 couples are set to tie the knot during a mass wedding ceremony in Russellville, Arkansas on Monday to mark the solar eclipse.
The couples will say “I Do” at an Elope at the Eclipse event just as the moon blots out the sun Monday afternoon.
“It just seems like the coolest wedding that you could ever have,” one bride, Carlotta Cox, told the local 40/29 News outlet.
Cox and her fiancé, Matthew Holloway, who hail from Knoxville, Tennessee, said they have been planning an eclipse wedding for two years.
“Our original destination was Maine. The totality there is like two minutes, and then we were looking for something where the totality was longer, and it was here in Arkansas,” Cox said.
Russellville, which was ranked by NASA as one of the best places in the US to watch the eclipse, is expected to be in the eclipse’s path of totality for roughly four minutes.
Katie Baucom, who is marrying her partner Nicholas Blackwell during the eclipse event, described her upcoming nuptials as a “once in a lifetime type thing.”
“It’s something big. We never really had anything big or major happen to either one of us,” she said.
Everything to know about the 2024 solar eclipse
- The solar eclipse will take place Monday, April 8, blocking the sun for over 180 million people in its path.
- The eclipse will expand from Mexico’s Pacific Coast across North America, hitting 15 US states and pulling itself all the way to the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
- New Yorkers will experience the solar eclipse just after 2 p.m. Monday.
- A huge explosion on the sun, known as a coronal mass ejection, is anticipated, according to experts. This happens when massive particles from the sun are hurled out into space, explains Ryan French of the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.
- To avoid serious injury to the eyes, it is necessary to view the event through proper eyewear like eclipse glasses, or a handheld solar viewer, during the partial eclipse phase before and after totality.
- The next total solar eclipse will take place on Aug. 12, 2026, and totality will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small slice of Portugal.
Meanwhile, one groom, Keegan, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that it took some convincing to get his partner, Courtney, to agree.
“She was wanting something a little more traditional and, it took a while, but I finally convinced her to get married in the eclipse,” he said.
Organizers say couples have flocked from across the country — including New York — to wed at the Russellville event.
The hundreds of couples will all cut wedding cakes, toast champagne and have their first dance in the wake of the eclipse.
The shadow of the moon will glide across the US, dimming the Sun for millions of Americans living in the solar eclipse’s path of totality, come Monday afternoon.
A couple of hundred million others will bear witness to a partial eclipse.