ANDRIA HALL, CNN ANCHOR: Well, as you know, Monday is a day for lovers. But on Sunday in Seoul, South Korea, they celebrated romance en masse.</s>SOHN JIE-AE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Love was definitely in the air in Seoul's Chuncha (ph) Stadium, as about 30,000 couples were married in a mass wedding by the Unification Church. About 10,000 couples were newly married, some meeting each other for the first time. Another 20,000 came to renew marriage commitments, people like Kit and Debbie Mar (ph) from Portland, Oregon, who were married the traditional way last year.</s>DEBBIE MAR, BRIDE: Because we're all here dedicating our lives to God, our future family to bringing -- raising the children up in our faith.</s>JIE-AE: Most of the newlyweds are matched by the church leader, Reverend Sun Myung-Moon. The result can be couples from entirely different cultural backgrounds who barely know each other, yet few seem to mind. It certainly didn't bother Yoko Kika (ph) from Japan and Edgar Ramirez from Venezuela, who met each other for the first time only five days ago.</s>YOKO KIKA, BRIDE: He has a nice heart and I'm so happy to be with him.</s>JIE-AE: Even Bangladeshi Keshi Hareem (ph), who had to get married with only the picture of his Japanese bride, who he's never seen and couldn't make the trip to Seoul, was beaming. (on camera): While this type of marriage may not be for everyone, church officials say these couples will leave with a strong sense of family values, values which go beyond religious boundaries. (voice-over): To emphasize the seriousness of the commitment, the church requires all couples to wait 40 days before consummating the marriage, but even that did not seem to dampen the mood. Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN, Seoul.
South Korea Celebrates Romance En Masse