数百对情侣将在日食之日在黑暗的道路上喜结良缘
【中美创新时报2024年4月8日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）佛蒙特州人托里·韦尔奇 (Tori Welch) 和她的未婚夫帕特里克·阿布·阿卜杜拉 (Patrick Abou Abdallah) 度过了动荡的一年。他们原计划在 6 月举行婚礼，届时将有 120 名宾客参加，并举行所有通常的庆祝活动，但婚礼最终被取消，以便这对夫妇有时间处理他们的关系。《波士顿环球报》记者卡洛斯·穆尼奥斯（Carlos R. Muñoz）对此作了下述报道。
它奏效了——事情重新调整了——现在韦尔奇说这场婚礼正在“按照我们的方式”进行。
事实上，他们正在让它变得特别。当到了选择新日期的时候，他们选定了 4 月 8 日，即大日全食的那一天。位置？ 佛蒙特州最高峰曼斯菲尔德山脚下的一座古老的石头小屋正好位于全食路径上，在那里月亮将完全遮挡太阳几分钟。
“对我们来说，日食的充满活力的表现是我们的吸引力，”37 岁的韦尔奇说，他是一名现居丹佛的脊椎按摩师。 “在日食的能量表现中，太阳代表男性，月亮代表女性。 在日全食发生的那一刻，月亮和太阳同时占据同一位置，达到了可辨认的程度。 对我们来说，这就是婚姻。 我们同时在同一个地方。”
他们的婚礼将于下午 3 点左右开始。持续约 18 分钟，以誓言、交换戒指和亲吻结束，然后月亮掠过太阳的表面，他们陷入黑暗。
韦尔奇和 32 岁的产品经理阿布·阿卜杜拉 (Abou Abdallah) 是全国数百对夫妇中的一员，他们决定在周一的大型天文奇观中结婚，有些夫妇几天前决定结婚，这一事件非常罕见，上世纪以来在新英格兰只发生过五次。
韦尔奇说，她读到日食后举行的集体婚礼，发现它们有点陈词滥调，而且“太俗气”，她选择在绿山与六位亲戚和朋友举行小型私人婚礼庆祝活动。
“我们想做一些有意义的事情，而不是噱头，”韦尔奇说，他的婚礼将是传统的，但有一些天体装饰。
她的未婚夫纯属巧合地为自己挑选了一枚陨石结婚戒指，而韦尔奇则选择了一颗公主方形切割椭圆形钻石，她说，当两枚戒指并排放置时，这颗钻石“像黯淡的太阳一样散发着光芒”。
“我们开玩笑说我们的婚礼将是一场天文盛事——天文数字。陨石是黑色的，外面的金属是钨，”阿布·阿卜杜拉说。
除了“日食主题”戒指之外，婚礼花束也将由观星百合制成。
来自新罕布什尔州黎巴嫩的 30 岁凯特琳·哈珀 (Caitlin Harper) 和亚历克斯·利特菲尔德 (Alex Littlefield) 认为在日食期间结婚“会很酷”。
哈珀说：“我们在有生之年永远没有机会做到这一点。”他补充说，他们想“我们能做些什么来让它变得特别，既不花很多钱，又没有机会享受自然现象？”
这对夫妇正准备在伯灵顿附近的佛蒙特州科尔切斯特举行婚礼，然后举行家人和朋友的亲密聚会。计划在谢尔本农场附近的一个湖上拍摄月亮逐渐遮挡太阳的照片，“这样我们就可以拍到有趣的照片。” 然后是晚上的誓言。
他们当然担心天气变坏。“新英格兰的天气变化。沿着整体路径的某个地方的某个人不会得到云。 如果我们必须用 Photoshop 处理那个坏男孩，我们不会害怕这样做，”她半开玩笑地说。
因为他们选择了非传统的婚礼，所以他们也将天文学主题更进一步。哈珀正在制作自己的婚纱，上面绣着“星星和天体”。
“如果我们要在日食期间举办婚礼，你就必须靠拢。如果这意味着有点做作、看起来有点戏剧化，那就很有趣。”
距离比赛结束还有几天，人们的兴奋感正在增强。
“这无疑是一个有趣的背景。这是一种只有在它开始发生之前才会对你造成打击的事情，”哈珀说。“它让你从哲学意义上思考我们是某个事物的一部分。”
佛蒙特州的婚礼策划者一直在竞相为韦尔奇和阿布·阿卜杜拉、哈珀和利特菲尔德等夫妇举办日食婚礼。事实上，许多婚礼协调员拒绝了希望在周一喜结连理的新人的提议，因为在月亮遮挡太阳的 3.5 至 4 分钟内，一些地区将处于完全黑暗的状态，因此实施了旅行限制。
佛蒙特州伯灵顿的婚礼策划师卡门·乔治在日食当天只接受了两份工作。一年前，她接到一些夫妇的电话，要求为太阳奇观预订服务，并决定需要设定一个限制。
“我不想在别人的婚礼上迟到，所以我小心翼翼地不要过度投入，”乔治说，他的一站式服务包括主持、插花和摄影。
但这并不能阻止新英格兰以外的一些州在周一全力以赴。
在阿肯色州拉塞尔维尔，周一，来自 22 个州的 330 多对新人将在“日食私奔”集体婚礼上说“我愿意”。情侣只需预先登记并携带结婚证即可参加免费的结婚仪式和招待会。
当拉塞尔维尔官员联系他组织一场活动时，活动组织者罗德尼·威廉姆斯提出了举办一场盛大婚礼的想法。威廉姆斯说，当地一家电视台和后来的全国媒体都报道了这个故事，注册人数激增。
“这么多夫妇同时结婚会加剧一些情绪，”威廉姆斯说。 “这是一种协同效应。 婚礼的情感和下午体验星空——这对每个人来说都将是一次独特的体验。”
音乐呢？当然，还有披头士乐队的《太阳来了》。
无论身在何处，即将结婚的新婚夫妇都希望在这个特殊的日子里能有好天气。但如果没有，他们也会做好准备。韦尔奇在附近有一座石头小屋，以防下雨，外面还有一个天篷，还有一把大泡泡伞，可以拍出最佳照片。由于佛蒙特州将因最近的暴风雨而被大雪覆盖，她计划穿马靴。
到目前为止，日食日的预测似乎对太阳观测者有利。
环球气象学家肯·马汉表示，春季强风暴给佛蒙特州带来了几英寸到一英尺的降雪，其“令人震惊”的部分应该会在周五结束。挥之不去的云层可能会持续到周日，但会在日食发生前消散。 不过，仍然存在一些高层云的风险。
如果一切按计划进行，韦尔奇、阿布·阿卜杜拉和数以万计的新英格兰日全食路径上的其他人将戴上日食眼镜，他们可能会在未来的几年里记住这一时刻。
婚礼策划师乔治说：“我认为人们希望在光明与黑暗融合的日子举行婚礼，这是非常甜蜜的，这是平衡的象征。” “这是关于两个截然不同的人聚在一起创造出美妙的东西。 两者平等存在。”
注意：在新英格兰的部分地区，下午 3 点天就会黑。但是，气象学家戴夫·爱泼斯坦表示，有一个因素可能会破坏宇宙体验。 （不明确的）
题图：37 岁的托里·韦尔奇 (Tori Welch) 是佛蒙特州伯灵顿人，与 32 岁的丹佛人帕特里克·阿布·阿卜杜拉 (Patrick Abou Abdallah) 将于 2024 年 4 月 8 日星期一日全食期间结婚。由托里·韦尔奇 (TORI WELCH) 提供
附原英文报道：
Hundreds of couples will tie the knot in the path of darkness on eclipse day
By Carlos R. Muñoz Globe Staff,Updated April 5, 2024
Vermont native Tori Welch and her fiance, Patrick Abou Abdallah, have had a tumultuous year. They had planned to marry back in June, complete with 120 guests and all the usual celebratory fanfare, but the wedding was eventually called off to give the couple time to work on their relationship.
It worked — things realigned — and now Welch said this wedding is being done “our way.”
And, indeed, they are making it special. When the time came around to pick a new date, they settled on April 8, the day of the big total solar eclipse. The spot? An old stone cottage at the foot of Mount Mansfield, Vermont’s tallest peak, smack dab in the path of totality, where the moon will completely block out the sun for a few minutes.
“For us, the energetic representation of the eclipse was our draw,” said Welch, 37, a chiropractor now living in Denver. “In the energetic representation of the eclipse, the sun represents the masculine and the moon represents the feminine. At the moment of the totality of the eclipse, the moon and sun are occupying the same place at the same time to the point of discernability. To us, that’s what a marriage is. We’re in the same place at the same time.”
Their wedding will begin around 3 p.m. and last for about 18 minutes, ending with vows, the exchanging of rings, and a kiss just before the moon moves across the face of the sun and they dip into darkness.
Welch and Abou Abdallah, 32, a product manager, are among the hundreds of couples nationwide who have decided — some just days ago — to get married during Monday’s big celestial spectacle, an event so rare it’s occurred only five times in New England over the last century.
Welch said she read about mass weddings that were being styled after the eclipse, and found them a bit cliche and “too cheesy,” opting instead for a small private wedding celebration with six relatives and friends in the Green Mountains.
“We wanted to do something meaningful and less gimmicky,” said Welch, whose wedding is going to be traditional but with a few celestial trimmings.
Her fiance had picked out, by mere coincidence, a meteorite wedding band for himself, while Welch selected a princess-cut oval diamond that she said “radiates like an eclipsed sun” when the two rings are set beside each other.
“We were joking that our wedding is going to be a celestial event — astronomical. The meteorite is black and the metal on the outside is tungsten,” Abou Abdallah said.
Along with the “eclipse-themed” rings, the wedding bouquet will fittingly be made of stargazer lilies.
Caitlin Harper and Alex Littlefield, both 30 and from Lebanon, N.H., thought “it’d be cool” to get married during an eclipse.
“We’ll never have the opportunity to do that in our lifetime,” Harper said, adding that they thought “What can we do to make it special, not costing a ton of money and a chance to enjoy a natural phenomenon?”
The couple is preparing to get married in Colchester, Vt., near Burlington, before an intimate gathering of family and friends. Pictures are being planned to be shot as the moon phases out the sun, on a lake near Shelburne Farms, “so we can get interesting photos.” Then it’s vows in the evening.
They are, of course, worried about the weather turning bad. “New England weather changes. Someone, somewhere along the path of totality will not get clouds. If we have to Photoshop that bad boy in, we aren’t afraid to do that,” she said, half-joking.
And because they’ve opted for a non-traditional wedding, they’re also taking the astronomy theme a step further. Harper is making her own wedding dress – with embroidered “stars and celestial things.”
“If we are going to do a wedding during an eclipse, you have to lean in. If it means being a little campy and looking a bit theatrical, it’s fun.”
And with a couple days away, the excitement is building.
“It’s an interesting backdrop for sure. It’s one of those things that won’t hit you until it starts happening,” said Harper. “It makes you think in a philosophical sense we are part of something.”
Wedding planners in Vermont have been racing to put together eclipse-day wedding ceremonies for couples like Welch and Abou Abdallah and Harper and Littlefield. Many wedding coordinators have actually turned down offers from couples looking to tie the knot Monday due to the travel restrictions that have been imposed in areas that will be in full darkness for the 3.5 to 4 minutes that the moon blocks out the sun.
Carmen George, a Burlington, Vt., wedding planner, accepted only two jobs on the day of the eclipse. She received calls from couples over a year ago requesting to book her services for the solar spectacle and decided she needed to put a limit.
“I don’t want to be late for someone’s wedding, so that’s why I am being careful not to overcommit,” said George, whose all-in-one services include officiating, floral arrangements, and photography.
But that’s not stopping some states outside of New England from going all out on Monday.
In Russellville, Ark., in the path of totality, more than 330 couples hailing from 22 states are going to say, “I do” at “Elope at the Eclipse” mass wedding on Monday. Couples need only to pre-register and bring a wedding license to participate in the free marriage ceremony and reception.
Event organizer Rodney Williams floated the idea of a massive wedding when Russellville officials approached him to organize an event. A local TV station, and then national media, ran with the story and registrations exploded, according to Williams.
“Having so many couples getting married at the same time will heighten some of the emotions,” Williams said. “It’s a synergistic effect. The emotions of the wedding and experiencing the stars in the afternoon — it’s going to be a unique experience for everyone.”
And the music? “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles, of course.
Wherever they are, soon-to-be newlyweds are hoping for good weather on their special day. But if not, they will be prepared. Welch has the stone cottage nearby in case it rains as well as a canopy outside, and a big bubble umbrella for optimal pictures. Since Vermont will be snow-covered from the recent storm, she plans on wearing riding boots.
So far the eclipse day forecast seems to be in sun-gazers’ favor.
Globe meteorologist Ken Mahan said the “shock and awe” part of a strong spring storm that’s bringing a few inches to a foot of snowfall to Vermont should end on Friday. Lingering clouds could last until Sunday but clear up in time for the eclipse. There is still a risk of some high-level clouds, though.
If everything goes according to plan, Welch, Abou Abdallah, and tens of thousands of others in the path of totality in New England will don eclipse glasses for a moment they’ll likely remember for years to come.
“I think it’s very sweet that people would like to have their wedding on a day that is about this merger of light and dark, and it’s a symbol of balance,” George, the wedding planner, said. “It’s about two very different people getting together to create something wonderful together. The two exist equally.”
WATCH: In parts of New England, it will get dark at 3pm. But, meteorologist Dave Epstein says there’s one factor that could ruin the cosmic experience. (undefined)
