Lock Your Love

Lovelock celebrates Valentine’s Day with wedding and weekend festivities.

By NEVADA MAGAZINE | January/February 2012

Photo: PR

It’s eternal—love that is—and even more so when it’s locked at Lovers Lock Plaza in Lovelock, home to the nation’s only “eternal” chain. This Valentine’s Day, February 14, lovers are invited to travel to Lovelock for a wedding and vow-renewal ceremony followed by love-locking to commemorate their love and the sixth anniversary of Lovers Lock Plaza.

Since its inception in 2006, people from around the globe have traveled to Lovelock to symbolically bind their love as part of an age-old Chinese custom revised into Nevada tradition.

In China, for decades lovers have placed a lock on an “endless chain” near the Great Wall in the Yellow Mountains and elsewhere. The love-locking tradition is also alive in Italy, with lovers affixing locks to the Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Milvio and throwing the keys into the Arno and Tiber Rivers.

Couples looking to legally marry at the ceremony will need to secure a State of Nevada marriage license prior to the ceremony. Participation is free.

Lovelock hosts a variety of activities in conjunction with the Valentine’s Day festivities at Lovers Lock Plaza. In 2011, events included the annual Lovers Aloft Balloon Races, wine tastings, art exhibits, an ice-cream social, poker walk, and more.

The balloon races, a Lovelock tradition, feature more than 20 hot-air balloons for a variety of competitions each morning. Plans are still underway for more 2012 events.