When Zach Horrall, a social media specialist at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Corlan McCollum, a children’s librarian, got engaged two years ago, they wanted to tie their wedding into a bigger event. At first, they considered Halloween, but when they realized Indianapolis was in the path of totality for the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse, they changed course.
The two are planning an outdoor wedding, with the ceremony clocking in at about three minutes and 45 seconds total in the Indianapolis area. They hope their 75 guests will pay more attention to the eclipse than to them.
“It welcomes a bit of pressure because you’re also bringing people to experience the eclipse,” Mr Horrall, 27, said. “They’re not just focused on you.”
Linking their wedding “to something like this makes it more important – like, yes, I’m going to use this major celestial event for my wedding,” added Mr McCollum, 21.
A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the sun and darkening the sky. The April 8 eclipse travels a path that starts in Mexico before entering the United States through Texas, passing through parts of the Midwest and Northeast, and then exiting through eastern Canada.
While areas outside this path may see a partial eclipse, most people planning eclipse weddings focus on the path of totality. During this time, the stars are visible, the temperature drops and the solar prominences swirl behind the dark disk of the moon, creating a dramatic experience, according to Bob Baer, a specialist at the Carbondale School of Physics and Applied Physics in southern Illinois. University and the co-chair of the 2017-2024 Southern Illinois Eclipse Steering Committee.
Mr Horrall and Mr McCollum, who are asking guests to wear either all-white or all-white in keeping with the eclipse theme, are not the only couple planning an eclipse wedding. And it’s not just couples planning private weddings: Many cities along the trail are hosting mass weddings.
Rodney Williams, who organizes a three-day eclipse festival in Russellville, Ark., aptly called Total Eclipse of the Heart, got the idea to add a wedding element from the town’s tourism logo, which features a heart.
“With all the other festivals going on that day, I wanted something that would set us apart,” said Mr. Williams, who owns a hot air balloon business in Branson, Mo.
The Russellville mass wedding, announced last July, has 332 couples registered. While Mr Williams expects some no-shows – the wedding is free, minus the cost of a festival ticket and marriage license – it is expected to be one of the biggest mass eclipse weddings on April 8.
A couple from Memphis — Miriam Maxey, 34, a preschool teacher and yoga instructor, and Nick Demari, 39, a mobile app developer — plan to marry. Ms Maxey was beginning to stress about wedding planning when an advert for the Russellville mass wedding appeared on her Facebook page.
“I was looking through the notes on my phone from last year and it said, ‘Remember for the April 8 eclipse,’ but I had no idea I was getting married then,” said Ms. Maxey, who added that Mr. Demari is also a fan of astronomy. “I wholeheartedly believe that the energy is going to be big — like that high-intensity magnetic energy.”
The small town of Tiffin, Ohio (population 17,765), will be the location for Seneca County’s Elope in Eclipse event, a free mass wedding.
Bryce Riggs, the executive director of the Seneca Regional Chamber of Commerce and Destination, said by the time registration closed on March 29, 150 couples from across the country had signed up.
“I would say it’s 10 per cent local and then the rest travel in,” Mr Riggs said. “We have a cumulative trip of 16,600 miles to the county to get married.”
The city of Akron, Ohio, which is in the path of totality, decided to do things a little differently. Akron Municipal Court is offering a free eclipse wedding, with Akron Municipal Court Judge David Hamilton in Cascade Locks Park, to the winners of his essay contest.
Kylie Thanasiu, 29, a registered nurse and stay-at-home parent, and Timmy Bryan, 29, who works in his family’s plastics business, are one of two winning couples. The couple, from Akron, met at age 16, bought a house five years ago and have a 14-month-old daughter named Rosie. Mr. Bryan proposed two years ago.
Ms. Thanassiou was browsing the website of the courthouse when she saw the competition and decided to participate.
“Part of why I chose it, apart from the amazing day of the eclipse, was because a lot of my family members will have the day off,” Ms Thanassiou said. Schools and many businesses in Akron are closed April 8 due to the eclipse.
April 8th falls on a Monday – not usually a desirable wedding day – and yet there are nearly 750 weddings listed on The Knot, a wedding website. Compare that to Monday, April 10, 2023, when about 360 marriages were recorded. But another Monday in recent history has also proven to be a popular wedding date, probably for the same reason. The last solar eclipse in North America was on August 21, 2017, and there were approximately 990 weddings recorded on The Knot at that time.
Jim Cross, 67, a retired packaging industry consultant in Homosassa, Florida, proposed to Michelle Cross, 55, a retired postal worker, in 2015 and asked her to marry him on August 21, 2017, in Greenville, SC, while Ms. . Cross was initially confused by its specificity, he said yes. As a self-described “enthusiastic cosmologist”, Mr Cross was already looking forward to the eclipse and knew it would be a special day to get married.
“I put together the two things I loved most, and that was Michelle and the universe,” Mr. Cross said. “I wanted to give her a wedding that would be hard to forget.”
Sagarika and Adam Ellenberger of Belle Mead, NJ, were also married on August 21, 2017. They had decided on a destination wedding near Breckenridge, Colo., on Lake Dillon. They originally booked Sapphire Point Overlook for Sunday, Aug. 20, but when Mrs. Ellenberger, 37, a clinical program manager for a biomedical research institution, read about the eclipse, she realized it was happening the day after their wedding and that Lake Dillon was just outside the path of totality. The couple quickly adjusted the date.
“Everyone agreed afterward that they felt an amazing flow of energy that happened right after the ceremony,” said Mr. Ellenberger, 41, a pharmaceutical scientist. “It felt like night during the day and I was really excited the whole time.”