‘I DO’ ON A CRUISE
Couples can combine their wedding and honeymoon by exchanging vows on a ship
Twenty years ago, Princess Cruises revolutionized the industry by launching the first oceangoing wedding chapel.
Since the Grand Princess set sail from Istanbul, Turkey, May 26, 1998, thousands of couples have tied the knot at sea.
Couples could combine the wedding and the honeymoon, and the event would cost less than a conventional ceremony — about $27,000 less, according to a 2009 cruise industry survey.
Some memorable vows have been exchanged at sea: Tami Van Dusen and Tim Ashley of Colorado Springs, Colo., were married earlier this year in a pool aboard the Crown Princess so Ashley, who uses a wheelchair, could stand next to his bride.
Francisco Vargas and Ben Gray of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this year became the first same-sex couple legally married at sea. Because of legal wrangling in Bermuda, where many cruise ships are flagged, Celebrity Cruises — its ships are registered in Malta — is the only line currently offering same-sex couples legal marriages at sea.
Nearly all major cruise lines contacted for this story would not reveal trends or divulge the number of weddings they perform annually. Exceptions were Carnival Cruise Line, which performs about 2,600 weddings annually, up from about 2,200 a decade ago, and Norwegian Cruise Line, which reported doubling its wedding business to about 350 ceremonies annually in the last four years.
Cruises allow couples to have a more intimate experience with a small group of friends and relatives, said Barbara Whitehill, managing director of the Wedding Experience, which provides wedding services for several cruise lines, including Carnival and Celebrity Cruises.
“A lot of people today want to have a closer group that really means a lot to them, instead of inviting the whole town to church,” Whitehill said.
My wife, Mica, and I chose a vow renewal ceremony on a Princess Cruises vessel that sailed in May from the Port of Los Angeles to Vancouver, Canada. We invited a handful of guests to join us and hoped, as all couples do, for smooth sailing.
Groom wore shorts
Van Dusen and Ashley each had a different reason for getting married aboard a ship. Ashley, a quadriplegic, wanted to stand with his bride and figured a ship’s pool would provide the buoyancy he sought.
Van Dusen wanted to get something right this time around.
“I told him I would never get married again,” she said, “unless I went on a cruise for my honeymoon.”
They hired a travel agent who specializes in assisting those with disabilities. But when the agent started asking about a wedding in a ship’s pool, the same answer kept resounding: no.
Finally, they heard what they had hoped for: Crown Princess would drain a pool partway, and Capt. Vincenzo Lubrano said he would be honored to perform the ceremony.
Ashley and Van Dusen’s brother wore shorts and black shirts with suspenders and bow ties. The bride’s white dress was cut just above the knee. As she walked out to meet the groom, standing in the pool with the aid of a walker, the Rascal Flatts song “Bless the Broken Road” played.
“That just fit both of us as far as where we had been in our lives before we met each other,” Van Dusen said.
The captain leaned over one end of the pool and led the service. As it ended, the couple kissed and walked arm in arm, crying, to the pool’s other end.
Their plans for a small wedding were short-circuited when other passengers caught wind of a wedding in the pool, its contents sloshing back and forth with the ship’s motion. As many as 200 people started clapping by the ceremony’s end.
“It was breathtaking,” Van Dusen said. “I felt like a princess, and Tim got what he wanted. I would not change one single thing.”
Their wedding certificate, instead of showing a place, delineates a spot in the Caribbean: 22 degrees, 2 minutes, 7 seconds north latitude and 77 degrees, 19 minutes, 3 seconds west longitude.
A rarity aboard ship
Vargas and Gray were married Jan. 29 aboard Celebrity Equinox in the Caribbean. They were looking for an intimate environment that would allow them to spend a few days with their loved ones.
“It was the right combination of wedding and fun,” Gray said.
He went scuba diving in Cozumel, Mexico, and Grand Cayman, and Vargas explored shore destinations — one with his mother and another with Gray’s father and his girlfriend.
The ceremony was flawless, they said, until the captain began to pronounce the couple as “man and wi—.” Catching himself just in time, Gray said, the captain introduced them as “husband and husband.”
“It was a real crowdpleaser,” Gray said.
The major cruise lines are urging Bermuda to reverse a law signed in February outlawing same-sex weddings, which extends to Bermudaflagged vessels at sea.
The law was passed in response to a Supreme Court ruling in Bermuda that appeared to pave the way for legal same-sex weddings aboard Bermuda-flagged cruise ships in international waters. The legal wrangling continues.
Port of ceremony
Some couples choose to travel with their wedding party and guests but hold the ceremony at a cruise destination. Alyshia Jackson and James Alexander of Whitby, Canada, were married in April in front of Konoko Falls in Jamaica.
The bride’s mother, Donna Jackson, a travel agent, made the arrangements — with the assistance of a wedding planner — for a sailing on Regal Princess, with 54 on-board guests.
“We were able to party together for a week, waking up in a different place every day,” Donna Jackson said.
Braving choppy seas
As Capt. Todd McBain beckoned us inside the Emerald Princess’ wedding chapel for our vow renewal, the deck pitched suddenly, and us with it.
“You haven’t been drinking, have you?” he asked my wife and me, smiling.
Um, no. The unopened Champagne was waiting on ice in the stateroom.
Inside the chapel, my wife’s relatives waited, perhaps pondering, as I was, all that had transpired in the 22 years since we had tied the knot in a Fresno restaurant.
This chapel was smaller by far, but cozy and welcoming, with sprays of flowers and two candelabra. My wife held a bouquet of white roses that matched the single white rose pinned to the lapel of my jacket.
As the deck continued to tilt — the ship was braving a gale-force headwind that topped 40 mph — the captain guided us through the refrain of shared burdens and joys, the power of love and the necessities of trust and loyalty.
The captain had told us beforehand that weddings and renewal ceremonies tend to follow a similar form, yet each is unique. In one recent service, he said, the couple each poured a small vial of sand into a common receptacle, signifying how their lives would blend.
Vow renewals are even more popular than weddings, McBain said. The next sailing after ours had four vow renewals planned for one day.
McBain closed our ceremony with a wish for our love to grow and the requisite permission every groom waits to hear: You may now kiss your bride.
“Now,” he said afterward, turning to our family members, ”we just have to smooth out the seas a little.”
Welcome marriage advice, even 22 years later.