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Who said fairy-tale romance doesn’t happen in real life? A few minutes after meeting in person for the first time, a California woman and a New York man got hitched at the Ontario International Airport on Friday, Daily Mail reports.
The decision to marry was premeditated; reporters from CBS News were waiting at the airport to film Erica Harris and Arte Vann tie the knot. In fact, Erica was the one who informed CBS about her wedding plans and invited them to record it, so that her new mother-in-law could watch it on TV. “I believe this man deserves a lot of love, and I want to give him the love he gives me,” she said. “Calling CBS was a present to his mom, because she wouldn’t be at the wedding since we were eloping.”
A spokesperson for the airport told reporters that the local media had alerted them about the wedding in advance. “It was set up by them,” the spokesperson said. “All we did was crowd control. Our PR told us they never met and the first time they met they got married in the terminal.”
Erica revealed that she had noticed Vann’s profile last year because of his cute profile picture. She then started observing the way he interacted with other women online. “What drew me to him is a lot of men, you can tell how they are to women through their comments,” she explained. “I saw that Arte was very personal, and he was very attentive, and thought: ‘Wow this guy seems like a nice guy.’”
So she started liking his pictures, which is how Vann became aware of her profile. He checked out her page and soon tagged her in a full-body mirror selfie, which came as a pleasant surprise to Erica. “I’m like, a tag? I’ve never gotten this, and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this man is good-looking,’” so I followed him right off the bat and he followed me right back.”
The couple began communicating and got serious about their relationship after that. They also interacted in a tight-knit writing community on Instagram, where they posted poems and commented on the works of other users. In December, another member of that group told the couple they “need to get hitched,” to which Erica replied “Yeah, well, okay, why don’t we get hitched?”
Vann apparently loved the idea too, so he quit his job in New York and bought a one-way ticket to California. He told Erica, “I can’t come out there and go back to New York. I can’t leave you.” So they met at the airport for the first time, fully intending to marry each other, letting God be their officiator.
