Couples in Thailand tie the knot on elephants on Valentine’s Day

Fifty-nine couples in Thailand tied the knot on elephants on Sunday (February 14) in a special Valentine’s Day wedding ceremony.

“For me, I’ve been planning for a long time that if I were to sign a marriage license one day, it must be an extraordinary event,” said groom Patiphat Panthanon, 26, sitting beside his 23-year-old bride.

Dancers and a band led the procession of elephants and couples and a local official, also on an elephant, oversaw the signing of the marriage license.

The elephant-back wedding is an annual event at the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden which usually attracts up to a hundred couples. But this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the numbers were down.

Kampon Tansacha, the president of the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden said that due to strict screening protocols for visitors, people were feeling safer and have started to come back to visit the botanical park which showcases recreations of landscaped gardens from around the world.

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