It really is the heart of New York.
Couples gathered in Times Square on Valentine’s Day Friday to cement their love before friends and tourists alike in a confetti-filled festival of romantic feeling that saw multiple pairs tying the knot in the Crossroads of the World.
For the 17th year in a row, the city celebrated the romantic holiday by arraigning for the urban nuptials below the flashing screens of Times Square in shower of love that stopped hurried New Yorkers long enough to take a peek.
Among the two pairs of love birds to be wed in the event organized by the Times Square Alliance were Ariadna Hazel and Mars Carbonell — who said there was no better spot for them to become legally bound.
“This is where we first met, actually,” said Carbonell.
“We thought getting married in Times Square would be perfect. Not many can say they got married here at Times Square — the Crossroads of the World.”
The newlyweds’ paths first merged in 2008, when they were both assigned to work together on a billboard in the area.
They dated for two years before Carbonell popped the question — but the couple waited another 14 before walking down the aisle at Duffy Square on Valentine’s Day.
“Finally! Finally, finally!” Carbonell cheered as he showed off his wife. “And I’ll never forget our anniversary.”
Two couples also got engaged in the event, including Neha Bellary and Ashish Karade, who traveled from upstate New York and Boston.
The entire event was a surprise to Bellary, who was caught off guard when Karade, 29, suddenly dropped to one knee and her name flashed across a massive billboard with the words: “Will you marry me?”
“It was not even planned to come [through here]. I’m very happy,” the 27-year-old said, sneaking a peek at the new diamond shining on her finger.
Karade brainstormed the proposal — in which the Alliance organized the words for the proposal to be flashed on a giant video screen — weeks in advance under the guise of bringing his love on a trip to New York “just for fun.”
“I caught her by surprise, for sure — I lit her heart up like the city lights of New York!” Karade poetically told The Post.
The pair have known one another since they were children, but their romance sparked eight years ago while they were in college.
Their relationship pivoted to long distance in 2022 when Karade moved to Binghamton from India. Bellary followed in late 2024, but her career took her Boston, a city the pair agreed to ultimately settle down in.
“I think we’re going to get married in a week, I already planned it without telling her,” Karade joked.
“I can’t wait anymore!”
Meanwhile, as many as 100 other lovebirds tied the knot at City Hall Friday, including Alison and Corinne Lemkin — who were celebrating their dating anniversary, engagement anniversary and wedding ceremony.
“We met two years ago and our first date was on Valentine’s Day because we had nothing else to do and we had no one to do it with, so we’re like, ‘Okay, we’re going on our first date.’ So we did,” Alison, 28, a nurse, told The Post.
“Then a year ago we got engaged on Valentine’s Day, and we said, ‘What’s a better time to get married than on Valentine’s Day, the day of love? It’s like it’s three for one: it’s starting anniversary, it’s our everything.”
The couple, of Florham Park in New Jersey, met at a dog park, so they figured it was only fitting that their dogs Pumpkin and Falafel be present for the wedding as the maid of honor and best man.
After the ring exchange, they read their own vows, which included hopes for future children and lots of belly rubs for their pups.
“I feel like the luckiest woman in the world. I know that I’m just so lucky to be able to marry her,” Alison said through tears.
Similarly, Alexis and Kenneth Arias chose to get married on Valentine’s Day because it’s Alexis’ favorite holiday: “I’m a big lover girl,” she said before the ceremony.
The couple have been dating for five years after meeting online. Kenneth popped the question just before Mother’s Day in May, three months before they welcomed their daughter Eden, who they moved back to their native Brooklyn to raise after spending several years in Florida.
“New York is really important to us, so we were like, we have to do it here in City Hall. It is perfect,” said Alexis, a stay-at-home mom.
Kenneth, 32, who works in tech, added: “I feel blessed. I just feel blessed, so many good things already happened to us in our relationship, and solidifying it like this to us, it’s very important. God has really been blessing us a lot in our lives and I feel like any one family helps society, so these are the kind of examples we want to set for everyone, for our daughter, um for the other people in our family.”