NEW YORK CITY — The Public Theater is hosting real weddings and vow renewals after each performance of its border-themed Romeo and Juliet production at the Delacorte Theater in New York City this summer. Oscar Diaz and Janelly Mendoza were married on stage following a June 11 performance.

Public Theater associate artistic director Saheem Ali initiated the idea to stage real weddings at the conclusion of the play to mirror the fictional marriage in the production. Thirty-two couples are participating in these post-performance ceremonies during the summer season. Ali's production of Romeo and Juliet is set at the U.S.-Mexican border.

In the play, Romeo's family is Latino and Juliet's family supports the border patrol. Ali traveled to Laredo, Texas, to observe the border wall separating the United States and Mexico. He learned of a local tradition where a U.S. citizen and a Mexican citizen marry on a bridge with an officiant positioned between the two countries.

Actor Francis Jue, who plays Friar Lawrence in the production, officiates the real weddings. Jue said during one ceremony, "Romeo and Juliet didn't get their lifetime together. But tonight, there is a couple who came all the way from the border wall at Laredo, Texas, who would like to commit to their lifetime together with all of you as their witnesses."

Diaz and Mendoza, residents of Laredo, Texas, have known each other since childhood. For Diaz, this occasion marked his first visit to New York City. Mendoza had previously visited the city once when she was eight years old. Mendoza said, "Just regular people like us don't do that stuff."

Ali said, "That marriage didn't get to see the future. But if we had a real couple who we married at the end, and they got to go into the future, it just gives us all some hope." Wedding planner Carla Perez distributed commemorative pins to the participating couples.