Sea of Love

Boat/US Magazine, May, 2001 by Becky Squires

A boat wedding made perfect sense to former BoatU.S. employee Heather Van Doorn. After all, she'd met Ted, her fiance, while both were working in the visual effects unit during the making of the movie "Titanic," she as an assistant camera person and he as the painter of the 45-foot model used to depict the ill-fated ocean liner.

"But it couldn't be just any boat," Heather said. "After all, how do you top the Titanic?" Her solution? The Queen Mary, the enormous ocean liner designed with the tragic lessons learned from the Titanic's construction firmly in mind, which completed 1,001 crossings of the Atlantic from 1936-1967 without incident. The ship is now a floating hotel in Long Beach, CA.

On Labor Day, Heather and Ted were married aboard the Queen Mary in a lavish ceremony replete with Edwardian-era costumes, bagpipers and Scottish kilts for the groom and his friends. "It was wonderful," she said. "We got married on one deck, went up to another deck for the reception, and then went to our honeymoon cabin, all right there on the ship."

The Van Doorns certainly aren't alone. According to the Web site www.about.com, the number of couples choosing to run away to sea to get married has grown at a "phenomenal" rate over the last five years. Carnival Cruise Lines, one of the larger operators, estimates that it will hold 2,200 weddings aboard its ships in 2001 alone. No firm statistics exist, but at least that many couples will tie the knot on smaller, privately owned or chartered boats.

"One option is to get married aboard the ship in its homeport before it leaves," said Jennifer de la Cruz, Carnival spokeswoman. "The nice part about that is that your family and friends can attend the ceremony and reception on board and then disembark, while you sail off on your honeymoon."

What's leading so many people to launch their marriage -- arguably life's most arduous journey -- aboard a boat? First is the obvious romance factor. A tropical sunset, soft sea breezes and the gentle rocking of a boat on turquoise water are enough to soften even the hardest of wintry hearts. Second, boat weddings score way up on the hassle-free factor. Working with a boat captain or a cruise line, the couple can order up everything from a brief "I do" ceremony aboard to a full-scale wedding reception for hundreds of their closest friends and family, complete with champagne, photographer, video, flowers, string quartet and a commemorative marriage certificate.

Another big draw of these buoyant bindings is that they can be held almost anywhere in the world that has enough water to float a boat, and many destinations have laws that allow non-residents to many without too many restrictions. (See box).

Florida, Hawaii and Alaska are popular sites in the U.S., but virtually every state in the union offers at least one floating wedding opportunity. In fact, we found numerous BoatU.S. members with boats in the business, including a 120-foot yacht in New York Harbor; a 56-foot motor yacht that doubles as a floating honeymoon haven in the Florida Keys; the world's only electric passenger vessel, a 72-foot riverboat in Newport Beach, CA, and a 54-foot sloop in Honolulu. Many of the Caribbean islands, seeing the enormous potential of luring happy bridal parties to their sandy shores, have loosened up their residency restrictions and abolished their waiting periods, making it much easier for non-residents to wed.

For close family and friends, weddings held in exotic places give them an excuse to take a terrific vacation, too. "We've arranged whole flotillas of sailboat charters in the Virgin Islands," said BoatU.S. Yacht Charter manager Mimi Stokes. "People sail during the day and raft up together at night ... and no one really minds if the honeymooning couple sneaks off by themselves."

Although at first glance taking off halfway around the world may seem prohibitively expensive, the average landlocked wedding in the U.S. cost $19,061 in 1998, according to Bride's Magazine. As far as honeymoon costs go, cruise ships and chartered boats are no more expensive -- and often cost less -- than a fancy resort, and you don't have to worry about renting a car or cooking dinner.

With love comes marriage, and with weddings come presents, so it is natural that www.BoatUS.com maintains an online wedding registry, the only one in the nautical world. Here, the bride and groom can list their choice in everything marine, from shackles to sheets to lighthouse-motif curtains, pillows and lamps. And whether the couple is married afloat or just floating on air, registry is free and open to all.

Who's Marrying Whom?

If the marriage is taking place in U.S. waters, individual state laws dictate who can marry whom, on both cruise ships and chartered boats. In Virginia, living up to its "Virginia is for Lovers" motto, almost anyone can receive permission to perform a wedding ceremony after filing an application and posting a refundable $500 bond. However, contrary to popular belief, most cruise ship captains cannot legally marry people at sea, so the majority of these marriage ceremonies are performed in port by a licensed official or member of the clergy.