Mass weddings
You may now kiss the bride. NEXT!
Alex Q. Arbuckle
19th-20th C.
A wedding group of Oxford professors.
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Mass weddings have historically been held for reasons of convenience or novelty. Getting married in a group allows participants to share the costs of the ceremony, for starters. Some charities organize multi-weddings to give poorer couples the type of lavish celebration they would not typically be able to afford.The most famous practitioner of mass weddings is Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, a Christian movement focused on promoting unity and world peace, partly through interracial and international marriage.Reverend Moon’s “blessing ceremonies” started out relatively small — 36 couples were joined in the first ceremony in 1961. They grew rapidly. Approximately 30,000 couples gathered for one in Washington, D.C., in 1997.The blessing ceremonies are not actually legal weddings. Many of the participants are already married, and the rest are officially married in a later legal ceremony.
Grooms stand outside a church in the Breton village of Plougastel-Daoulas, France.
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A group of brides enters the church in the village of Plougastel-Daoulas, France.
Credit: M. Rol/ullstein bild/Getty Images
112 couples proceed to a mass wedding ceremony in Germany.
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A mass wedding of soldiers in Italy.
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A mass wedding for poor couples held in Lisbon, Portugal on St. Antonio's Day.
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Twenty couples participate in a mass wedding in a Tokyo hotel.
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Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han marry 2,075 couples at a mass wedding at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Credit: Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images
Credit: Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images
Two brides congratulate each other at a mass wedding at Madison Square garden officiated by Reverend Moon.
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36,000 couples are wed at a Unification Church ceremony in Seoul's Olympic Stadium.
Credit: Kurita KAKU/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Credit: Kurita KAKU/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
Credit: Kurita KAKU/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
Credit: Kurita KAKU/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
Credit: Kurita KAKU/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
A mass wedding at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., officiated by Reverend Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church.
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40,000 couples attend a ceremony officiated by Reverend Moon in the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea.
Credit: CHOO YOUN-KONG/AFP/Getty Images
Credit: CHOO YOUN-KONG/AFP/Getty Images
Credit: CHOO YOUN-KONG/AFP/Getty Images
Brides wait for their mass wedding, organized by a charity for the poor, to begin in Amman, Jordan.
Credit: JAMAL NASRALLAH/AFP/Getty Images
Emirati grooms await the start of a 650-couple wedding ceremony in Abu Dhabi.
Credit: JORGE FERRARI/AFP/Getty Images
100 couples toast their marriages at a mass wedding in Beijing, China.
Credit: GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images
