Married At Sea



""Since the days of the first wooden vessels, all ship masters have had one happy privilege: that of uniting two people in the bonds of matrimony.""

- Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trek, "Balance of Terror"

So you're in a rush to get married, only you don't want to go through the hassle of standing in line for a marriage license, getting a blood test, and blowing thousands of dollars on an elaborate ceremony. What do you do?

Well, you simply hire out the nearest sea captain (the saltier the better), have him take you in his boat beyond the 12-mile mark and then let him perform your wedding ceremony. After all, you're in international waters. Anything goes, right?

Well... wrong. Captains can perform marriages, but they need a license to do so, just like anyone else would. In most countries, no law "automatically" grants captains this right. Bermuda is one of the rare exceptions, as is Malta. Even the ability of a ship's chaplain in international waters to solemnise marriage is uncertain today. You wouldn't know that by watching television, where a sizeable chunk of nuptials are performed by salty sea dogs (with bonus points to the captain if he wears a patch over one eye and reads the vows to the couple in a Pirate-y accent).

The trope may have originated in the The Age Of Sail when Europeans would have to travel by ship for months at a time to reach far flung colonies. A couple could meet, court, and marry all while still enroute to their destination. A marriage carried out by government officials during port calls might not have been an option in the middle of a lengthy trans-oceanic journey with no land in sight. Waiting for months to reach terra firma to wed might also not be an option under certain extenuating circumstances, such as an imminent birth or an in articulo mortis wedding as a dying wish of someone who may not live to complete the voyage.

Certainly a ship's chaplain as officiant could have been a possible alternative (where available), although the master would still need to note the marriage in the ship's logbook. The ship's status in international waters adds further ambiguity – although the flag of the ship's registration would likely determine jurisdiction. If the ship's home country requires couples to obtain a licence (or complete other formalities) before marriage, the restrictions could be very difficult to meet if the ship is already at sea.

Can result in an Accidental Marriage. May also be done by The Captain of a Cool Ship in SPACE – which makes sense, if the destination of a voyage is light-years away.

Not quite the same as Shipping. Compare Wartime Wedding, Old-Fashioned Rowboat Date (another boat-relationship trope).

Film

 * The African Queen had the two leads being married by the captain of a German military ship seconds before they were to be executed. (The captain may have known that he was unauthorized to perform such a ceremony, but how could he turn down the last starry-eyed request of a couple about to die?)
 * Responsible for one of the finest lines in history: "I now pronounce you husband and wife -- proceed with the execution."
 * In this case it was also a means of buying time and distracting the warship's crew, given that
 * Happens in the midst of a rather pitched battle (swords, pirate ships, whirlpool, storm) at the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie—Elizabeth asks Barbossa to marry her to Will. Barbossa thinks she's mad, but recites it anyway while all three keep fighting Davy Jones' undead fishy crew.
 * The situation may be the most awesome marriage scene in the history of marriage scenes.
 * Barbossa's lines are particularly hilarious if you can make them out.
 * "Dearly beloved, we be gathered here today... to nail yer gizzard to the mast ye poxy cur!"
 * Not to mention "In sickness and in health...with health being the less likely!"
 * And Will's adorkable "Great"
 * "You may kiss-- [is attacked by another fishman] Just kiss!"

Literature

 * In a very different variant, The Wheel of Time has pushy Nynaeve insist her stoic Love Interest marry her immediately once they're reunited on a Sea Folk ship, only to discover mid-ceremony that the required vows are rather different and unusually specific in their culture.
 * Lovers Desdemona and Lefty took advantage of being on a ship where no one knew them by faking a courtship and getting married in Middlesex. The secrecy was necessary: they were siblings.
 * Played perfectly straight offscreen in The Bacta War. After Rogue Squadron (with occasional help) defeats the bacta cartel, and wanting to avoid weeks or months of her father dogging Corran's every step on the way to the wedding, Corran and Mirax get married—by Wedge Antilles, who is in fact not even a "real" captain, but a starfighter commander. However, as the Lusankya was surrendered to him personally, he became its de facto commander...which is apparently all that's needed in the Star Wars universe to preside over a marriage ceremony.
 * Played as Gallows Humor in Tim Powers' Declare. While Cassagnac, Andrew, and Elena are hiding out in a kind of barge in East Berlin just after World War II, Andrew and Elena finally say that they love each other. Cassagnac laughs and says "This is the spirit for dying. The captain of a ship can perform marriages -- and so I hereby pronounce you two man and wife. Kiss the bride quick, Andrew, before you die."
 * The Aubrey-Maturin series has two such weddings; at the end of The Surgeon's Mate, Stephen and Diana are married by his newly promoted young friend William Babbington, while crossing the English channel, having just escaped from France, thus restoring her British citizenship and allowing her to disembark in England. Later, in Clarissa Oakes Jack marries the title character, a runaway convict from Australia to one of his midshipmen, thus giving her some legal protection and eventually aiding in her pardon.
 * A variation is presented in Empire of Ivory where the captain of a refugee-packed dragon transport is being married . Given that they were in a bit of a rush the ship's chaplain is deemed the only one legally fit to do so.
 * In the Margaret Weis/Tracy Hickman series The Death Gate Cycle, the protagonist and miscellaneous refugees are escaping a catastrophe, and two characters ask the protagonist to marry them, citing this tradition. He agrees reluctantly.
 * In Golding's "To the Ends of the Earth" trilogy it happens once, and the captain accidentally begins to read the funeral service... (well, the groom was actually dying, but he Got Better)
 * The rapid modern steam travel described in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days is the Trope Breaker that ended the long-standing historic presumption that shipboard weddings in international waters were a matter of practical necessity. Phileas Fogg averts the trope by frantically requesting a next-day church wedding as his first order of business on returning to London. Technology Marches On, allowing him this option as what was originally a three-year voyage by sail takes less than a season by steamship and rail.

Live Action TV

 * In an episode of Gilligan's Island, the Howells learn via a radio report that the minister who married them was never ordained and thus, they believed themselves to be unmarried. They tried to rectify this by having the Skipper marry them on a raft, but after bickering for awhile, they call the wedding off. They soon learn that the radio report was in error and had named the wrong minister. (The irony here is that, according to the law, even if their minister was a fake, the Howells themselves would still have remained legally married as long as they believed him to be genuine. See this Straight Dope entry for more details on the subject. But then it's Gilligan's Island.)
 * Almost done by Lily and Marshall in How I Met Your Mother.
 * Marcy's wedding to her second husband in Married... with Children. She made the mistake of allowing Al Bundy to make all the arrangements and soon found him cutting corners to save (and pocket) money. Among the things he did was forgo a minister and hire the captain of a garbage scow to perform the marriage via CB radio.
 * Mork of Mork and Mindy is asked by a pair of teenage friends to perform their secret wedding, justified by the fact that, as Mork rationalized it, he came on a ship, he was the only person on that ship, so he must have been the captain.
 * PRE-Teen - two kids who wanted an excuse to eat lots of candy (they understood marriage to be a licence to "do things that kids couldn't"). Which made them sick.
 * Nash Bridges, a police captain, performs a marriage in one episode, with the excuse that the division he is captain of is currently headquartered on a boat.
 * Offered on The Office when the captain of a Lake Scranton booze cruise (Rob Riggle!) offers to marry Pam and Roy on the spot.
 * Done for real when  run away from their big wedding, to have their own private ceremony first... on the nearest sightseeing-boat.
 * The producers of Remington Steele royally pissed off many Shippers when they had Remington attempting to enter into a Citizenship Marriage with a random hooker, then had him and Laura wed at the end of the episode by a sea captain in a surly ceremony that wasn't anything near the consummation that many fans of the show were hoping for.
 * The original Star Trek plays this very straight, with Captain Kirk marrying a soon-to-be-doomed couple and making mention of the "tradition" of captains marrying passengers to each other. (Of course, this is The Future, and he is the highest civil authority on a ship billions of miles in deep space, so it's perhaps not unnatural for him to be allowed to perform a duty like this.) Kirk's speech at the beginning of the wedding is paraphrased whenever a Federation officer officiates a wedding in later series.
 * Nor Captain Picard either, when he was asked to marry O'Brien and Keiko to each other.
 * Commander Sisko probably has the best claim of all of them, at least for the Bajorans, who consider him The Messiah. Sisko is also shown to marry some of his (non-Bajoran) troops. In an episode he lament the fact that he officiated a dead Red Shirt's wedding.
 * Admiral Ross performed the ceremony for Sisko and Kassidy Yates, also giving the same speech as Kirk and Picard.
 * Tom Paris' wedding with B'elanna Torres in Star Trek: Voyager was not shown on screen, but it is generally assumed that Captain Janeway must have conducted the ceremony.
 * As was the case on  in "Course: Oblivion".
 * Esteban and Francesca are married aboard the S.S. Tipton in the Suite Life on Deck episode "Mother of the Groom."

Theater

 * Affectionately parodied in the musical The Drowsy Chaperone: The show-within-a-show ends with the best man neglecting to hire a minister for the wedding, so he enlists a passing aviatrix (reasoning that she is a "captain of a ship of the air") to marry all the happy couples en route to the honeymoon.
 * Inverted in HMS Pinafore. The lovers, a sailor and the captain's daughter, intend to elope and get married ashore.

Video Games

 * Guybrush and Elaine are married at sea during the epilogue of The Curse of Monkey Island.
 * Side characters Torlo and Tatiana get married aboard ship in Infinite Space with ship captain Yuri and his sister Kira as witnesses.

Web Comics

 * Order of the Stick has one where the Mauve Shirt couple was promoted to nobility, on the basis of not being backstabbing scumbags like the entire rest of the nobility. They, unusually, went with the bride's name - the groom's name is being kept as a last line of defense.

Western Animation

 * In Pirates of Dark Water, a mad alchemist fell in love with Ren (because he reminded her of his father Primus), and asked the Big Bad to marry them in exchange for turning over Ren's Macguffins. He indulged her, although as he confided to Ren, "I wouldn't expect much of a honeymoon..."
 * Spoofed in Futurama. Calculon: "As a doctor and captain of this hospital ship, I now pronounce you man and wife with six months to live."
 * Spoofed again, with Leela using this as a threat to the crew, claiming she can marry them against their will.
 * Downplayed at the end of Disney's The Little Mermaid. They're married by a priest, not a captain.
 * In an episode of The Simpsons, the Sea Captain is seen performing a wedding ceremony for a man and a cow.

Real Life

 * While TV's The Love Boat played extensively with this trope, the real-life Princess cruise line (and its competitors, including Carnival's Cunard ocean liners) have been known to register ships in places like Bermuda or Malta as a flag of convenience – as this does allow captains to officiate marriage.
 * Japan may allow marriage on its ships at sea if both prospective spouses hold Japanese citizenship. The Philippines (and Spain) have been known to allow marriage in articulo mortis (on the point of death) to be solemnized by a ship's captain, aeroplane pilot or military commanding officer.
 * A captain who also holds some other credential (such as a judge, justice of the peace, minister of religion or notary public) may be able to officiate; there's also the option of a ship's chaplain performing the honours. If the ship is in port (or in one country's territorial waters), an officiant from that port may perform the marriage. And yes, there's likely at least one US federated state which, with a view to upholding the First Amendment, honours Flying Spaghetti Monster or another organised Parody Religion as a valid credential.