I do, I do, I do: Mass Valentine's wedding at Florida museum

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Shackeem Frankson is the quintessential burly prison guard, but when he turned Monday to exchange wedding vows with his longtime girlfriend, Sarah Horton, he had to pause to wipe away the tear that trickled down his cheek.

But no worries — the other eight couples exchanging their own vows at a mass Valentine's Day wedding outside one of Florida's most historic mansions were probably too busy to notice so his secret is safe.

“It's all right to be emotional today,” said a laughing Frankson, his bride giggling at him being busted, after the ceremony arranged by Palm Beach County Court Clerk Joseph Abruzzo and his staff.

Appropriately, the group ceremony took place on the south lawn of Whitehall, the 75-room, 100,000-square-foot (9,290-square meter) waterside retreat that oil and railroad tycoon Henry Flagler built as a wedding present for his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler. The Flaglers wintered there beginning in 1902, and it is now the centerpiece of the Flagler Museum. Historians say it cost $4 million ($110 million today) to build. It typically costs $15,000 to get married there, but on this day the venue was free.

And it was a bright, sunny but chilly for a South Florida morning (62 degrees Fahrenheit or 17 degrees Celsius) as the couples gathered outside the gates of the two-story neoclassical mansion, its white columns overlooking the crowd.

Bride-to-be Diana Garcia waited outside in her white dress with her fiance, retail manager Sergio Mena, about to culminate their two months of engagement. They met in middle school about a dozen years ago, but only started dating two years ago. They have a 1-year-old son.

Garcia — or Diana Mena as you are reading this — signed up the couple after seeing it promoted on the clerk's website. It “would be really cool” to get married on Valentine's Day at such a historic venue.

“It is a special destination and not at the courthouse," said Diana Mena, a housekeeper.

For Frankson and the former Ms. Horton, who waited nearby, the ceremony ended a five-year engagement — “we just kept putting it off," she said. They met online seven years ago.

Sarah Frankson, an accounts manager, said she had seen a local TV news story that the clerk's office was seeking couples for the ceremony, so she signed them up and they were picked. They'd sorta started planning a wedding a couple years ago, but then the COVID-19 pandemic began and it got pushed aside until this opportunity arose.

“It is different,” she said. Frankson added another benefit — there was none of the “hassle” of planning a more traditional wedding. The downside — no families were allowed, including the Frankson's 5-year-old son, but they could watch the ceremony on Facebook and many had plans for luncheons or receptions after.