Thousands take part in Unification Church mass wedding

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• published: 23 Jul 2015
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SHOTLIST Asan city, South Korea 1. Wide pan of the mass wedding 2. Medium of the couples at the mass wedding 3. Close up of a bride at the mass wedding 4. Wide of mass wedding 5. Mid of the leader of worldwide Unification church, Sun Myung Moon and his wife walking out to the stage 6. Mid of Sun Myung Moon and his wife 7. Pan from the couples to Sun Myung Moon and his wife 8. Close of a couple at the mass wedding 9. Mid of the couples at the mass wedding 10. Mid of the couples at the mass wedding 11. SOUNDBITE: (Korean) Sun Myung Moon, leader of worldwide Unification church: "Dear God, please accept these thousands of brides and bridegrooms of heaven into your heart who have come to your calling enduring all kinds of hardships." 12. Close of the couples exchanging wedding rings 13. Close of a hand wearing a wedding ring 14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Yurael Vaskovich, man from California getting married: "Very good, we hit it off really well, I feel. We did great and it just kept rolling from there and getting closer and closer and now we're here, so, it's exciting." 15. Mid of the couples at the mass wedding 16. SOUNDBITE: (Korean) Oshima Fumi, woman from Japan getting married: "I think it's great because now we can share the happy moments together." 17. Close of a couple at the mass wedding 18. Wide of the mass wedding 19. Unification church official Moon Hyung-jin 20. Sun Myung Moon and his wife 21. Wide pan of the mass wedding STORYLINE From South Korea to South America, the brides wore white for the Unification Church's largest mass wedding in a decade, with some 40,000 people participating in dozens of cities around the world. The "blessing ceremony" was the church's largest since 1999, and may well be the last on such a grand scale officiated by the 89-year-old Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the controversial founder of the Unification Church. More than twenty-thousand people gathered at Moon's Sun Moon University campus in Asan, south of Seoul, for the main event on Wednesday morning while some 20,000 more joined simultaneous ceremonies on Tuesday night in the U.S., Brazil, Venezuela and elsewhere. Some were new couples who met for the first time in recent months in unions arranged by the church; others were married couples renewing their vows. The brides wore veils and wedding dresses, or their national dress; the men wore black suits with red ties, with white scarves wrapped around their necks. The mass wedding comes as Moon moves to hand day-to-day leadership over to his children, though the Reverend Moon Hyung-jin, the 30-year-old tapped to take over religious affairs, insists his father remains in charge of the church and in good health. The massive global ceremony is meant to mark two key anniversaries in the leader's life: his 90th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his marriage to Han Hak-ja, church officials said. Row after row of brides in veils and grooms in white gloves - hailing from South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Europe and elsewhere - posed for photos, sang and practiced shouting "Hurrah!" at a pre-ceremony wedding rehearsal. "I think it's great because now we can share the happy moments together," said Oshima Fumi, a 29 year old Japanese woman getting married. During the ceremony, Moon sprinkled holy water toward the crowd before the couples exchanged rings. After blessing the newlyweds, he led them in a loud cheer amid a shower of white confetti. In the past, the Moons wore elaborate, high priest-style white gowns and headpieces for the blessing ceremonies. Critics who accuse the church of engaging in cultlike practices say the mass weddings prove it brainwashes its followers. In the past, Moon routinely paired off couples, many of whom met for the first time at their wedding. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/a45114e82db4f6fd62bc909cbec6d0d8 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork