Nearly 6,000 couples promised to be true in sickness and in health in a mass wedding Friday in South Korea, and put their new vows immediately to the test asfears surrounding the coronaviruscontinue to surge.
Thousands of brides and grooms, all members of the Unification Church, tied the knot before a crowd of 30,000 in Gapyeong, a county in the north of the country,Agence France-Pressereported.
Some couples reportedly wore face masks, as did those in the audience, as they all joined together in a large crowd despite the fact that the contagious respiratory illness now known as COVID-19 has been spreading since December.
South Korea has 28 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and there are 45,206 cases worldwide.
Seoul, the capital of South Korea, has reportedly barred entry to foreigners who have recently traveled to Wuhan, and the country has been canceling festivals and concerts as a precautionary measure.
Bride Choi Ji-young, 21, told AFP that while she did have some fears about the virus, she wasn’t too worried.
“It would be a lie if I said I was not concerned at all about the infection,” she said. “But I feel like I will be protected from the virus today.”
Church follower Evelyne Chimfwembe, who traveled with her husband from Botswana to attend, said similar, telling AFP that she was not concerned about the virus because the event was “under God’s control.”
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Seung-il Ryu/NurPhoto via Getty
Similar mass weddings have taken place in the United States, like in 1982 when 2,075 couples married in the same ceremony at Madison Square Garden, theTimesreported.
source: people.com
