
(Photo by Isabelle Khurshudyan for The Washington Post)
BELTON, S.C. — David and Susan Summer have been married just 18 months, but their vow renewal on Monday will mark the couple’s third wedding ceremony.
The first time they said their vows was at a Belk department store, right after purchasing the rings. They had a wedding license and a reverend the second time, getting officially married in the deli of a local supermarket.
With upstate South Carolina in the path of totality for the solar eclipse on Monday, the Summers will again slip rings on each other’s fingers in a ceremony at Blue Jar Barn in Belton, just before this town of less than 4,500 people experiences a period of darkness for two minutes and 27 seconds.
The Summers are the only couple renewing their vows in a ceremony that will wed six couples at once, a unique way to commemorate the solar eclipse and South Carolina’s place along the path of totality. Blue Jar Barn offered a special price of $300 per couple.
David and Susan Summer said they were baptized in nearby Anderson, S.C., on Sunday, and after, they got matching eclipse tattoos on their ring fingers with the picture of a moon covering the sun at the center of a black band.
“We met at the jailhouse,” David said.
He was at the local sheriff’s office “taking care of a lawsuit,” Susan said. She was there to visit someone but had gone to the wrong place.
“She comes out of the door skipping, and I asked her for her telephone number,” David said. “I ain’t never done that.”
Three months later, they were married. Eighteen months after that, David waited for Susan at the end of an aisle of white chairs in a shaded field with eclipse glasses in his pocket.