could anyone marry us?

nay_ho

hypothetically, if my fiance and I decided to go ahead and take the plunge on the Joco Crazy Cruise, would there be anyone there who could marry us? 

I checked out Royal Caribbean's site on it, and they have a bunch of packages, but... we don't really want a big "to-do". 

chetman

I am a Universal Life minister, and have officiated at a couple weddings on dry land. According to the ULC site, my ordination is valid at sea as well. 

I don't know you, but a Sea Monkey is a Sea Monkey, so I'm sure willing. Given the  generally quality nature of our community here, I'm also certain I won't be the only person to volunteer. 

villicious

I would double-check the rules on marriages at sea. My understanding of that whole thing is that cruise ships don't do services at sea because there's no governing body to make the marriage legally valid. (Not doubting you, Chet. Doubting the ULC.)

(Also, my brother and sister-in-law found when they were getting married that some states have very particular rules about who is and is not allowed to perform marriages, with ULC not begin recognized as actual clergy in every state. They had to find a local officiant from a recognized denomination.)

BrettGlass

Wyoming recognizes marriages performed by any judge (though I'm afraid Judge John Hodgman probably would not qualify) or "minister of the gospel." The latter is pretty loose and does include the ULC.

Dr_Leila

There is a pretty good discussion about this on the Straight Dope forum. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-578036.html

The gist of it is that if the boat is not registered in the US and is outside US waters, it can get tricky. The general consensus was that you get your marriage license and court clerk wedding before you go in whatever state you like, then have whatever ceremony you want on the boat presided over by whomever you like *cough* Jonathan Coulton *cough cough* Paul & Storm.

chetman

IANAL, but the general overriding principle is that if two people think they got married, they did. I don't think there's much chance of a couple who got a license and filled it out and had a wedding, however small, later discovering that they're not "really" married. 

ULC has actually litigated the question of "who is a minister" more than once, which surprised the hell out of me; I was under the impression they were a prank outfit until I agreed to officiate the first time and did some reading. The holdouts at this point are, according to their site, are most of PA and most of VA. When state laws barring ULC ministers are challenged, they tend to lose.

Tracy touches on what is probably the bigger question, which is "which state issues the marriage license for a wedding to be performed in international waters?"

My wife -- also not a lawyer, but a family law paralegal, and this is not legal advice -- assures me that most states DO NOT CARE where exactly the license is executed. However, some do.

If Nay_ho lives in a place where ULC ordination is honored, then the next step would be to ascertain if, legally speaking, her home state's license rules care where she gets married, or care if it's at sea.

If not, it sounds like it's no big deal. 

If so, then I'd ask RCI how they manage it. A quick call to the RCI wedding people would probably clear it up, though it would come with a sales pitch. The county clerk wherever Nay_ho lives could probably also answer the question with potentially more clarity.

If you live in a state where they insist you be married IN the state, then it's more complicated. The easiest option appears to be getting a license in Florida, i.e. our port of departure; the sunshine state helpfully issues licenses to nonresidents. 

If you google "florida marriage license cruise wedding," you'll even find a host of providers that will help you do this ahead of time. ULC ministers are legal in Florida, so at least there's that. (Cruise ship captains are not as a rule legal officiants; that's apparently a myth. However, it appears RCI captains are now legal (Bermudan) officiants.)

Finally, if what you want is a Sea Monkey wedding party, you could just quietly and secretly get legally married in your hometown just before the trip, and then do your personal vows, ceremony, rings, etc., on the boat officiated by whomever you choose. 

"Pre-weddings" like this are surprisingly common; some friends of ours did it several months ahead of the big day for insurance and logistical reasons, but they mark the date of their ceremony as their anniversary. 

BrettGlass

My wife and I did a quick, civil "pre-wedding" in November (in Las Vegas, where you can get married in an hour) for tax reasons. Because she had been a full time student with no income, it reduced our income taxes for that year so much that it paid for our honeymoon the next (after the more formal ceremony)!

Kvort_the_Duck

As someone who was married in Florida, I'd point out that there IS a three-day waiting period between when the license is granted and when you can get married.

There's a story re: this waiting period and you can probably convince my wife or I to share on the cruise.

I would also advise separating the legal details from the ceremony - although I can't think of anyone who ever looked at our marriage license past "do the names match"...

>>>>>>>  Nathan

villicious

Here is a spot where, IMO, HAL wins out over RCI. I attended the wedding of two sea monkeys on JCCC2, when we were still on Holland America. It was a tiny ceremony and just lovely, and not at all what I would call A Big To-do. However, looking at the price comparison of HAL vs. RCI, HAL seems to offer much more along the lines of no-frills than RCI does. The starting price point on HAL is $795 and on RCI it's $3k+.

When I witnessed my brother's wedding, they had to travel to N.C. in advance of the wedding to secure the license ahead of time, and the officiant had to confirm where we were down to the county before signing. But that is the extent of my actual experience with wedding law.

kate

@villicious, I recall the JCCC2 wedding. It was performed before departing the port, correct? I assumed there was a legal reason for this... but I really don't know.

villicious

It was still in the port, yes. I only attended/didn't help plan, so I don't know what went into their decision. I looked into weddings in general out of curiosity back when we were on HAL, and HAL did weddings on the ship in port, and had venues on their private islands, and (I think) would help people arrange weddings in ports that were not private island stops. But, they did not do weddings in international waters (at least as an official cruise line thing) because of legal weirdness.

chetman

A wedding in port is obviously a good option, since if you're in port, you're still in Florida, and you sidestep the question of international waters.

FYI, Florida waives the waiting period for out-of-state applicants. 

SapphireMind

From having done a vow renewal at sea (which makes you wade through a bunch of wedding stuff) nearly all the cruise lines make you do the legal paperwork before you get on the boat, then you can do a ceremony on the boat. 

Sort of the same lines as Chetman says - a lot of a wedding is what the couple feels it is.  Who cares when the marriage license is signed, what's really important is how the couple feels about the marriage 

BrettGlass

In common law, if you act like you're married (especially for an extended period), then you are. ;-)

villicious

Most states don't recognize common law marriages.

I like Sapphiremind's idea as well. My cousin needed to be legally married by a certain date because his job would pay to relocate a spouse, but not a girlfriend/fiancee. So they had a tiny legally recognized ceremony with just themselves, witnesses and an officiant. Then they had a big party with more ceremonial vows later on when families and friends could all be there. (That was also lovely.)

chetman

Why would vow renewals require paperwork? Aren't they personal, spiritual things? I mean, you don't need a license for one, right?

BTW, this is SUCH a nerd thread. OP has yet to respond, and we're a page deep. 

nay_ho

Thanks everyone! the more information, the better.

The cruise line offers "packages" like for $1000 to $3000 you can get a service/bottle of champagne/bouquet, but here's the thing... I really REALLY don't want a product wedding. I would much prefer to meet an awesome sea monkey that has the super power to make us official.  

We already consider ourselves family and we just want to make it legal. yeah we could do the courthouse thing, and we probably will have to, but making it legal on the cruise just seemed like an incredible opportunity to have a story to tell.

Chetman, I would be stoked if you could do it. assuming Wil Wheaton is busy that day

chetman

I'd of course be honored.

Simalot

You may want to check with Allie and Mike, who got married on JCCC4. I forget which island they got married on. This cruise we'll be in Puerto Rico, which, unless they get the Scottish bug by January, will still be part of the US. I don't know if Allie and Mike have a presence on the JoCo forum, but they are in the JCCC5 FB group.

Edit: Congratulations!

stitchinthyme

We got married on a cruise, but the ship was still in port in NYC when the actual ceremony took place; the officiant (and all our guests) boarded the ship in port, then got off before the cruise departed, while we stayed on for our honeymoon in Bermuda. It was a nice, easy, no-fuss way to get married.

beth

I'm also a minister and have performed a legal wedding on dry land.  I would be honored to be a backup backup minister, after Wil and chetman

Kathleen

Allie and Mike got married in Grand Cayman on JCCC4, if I recall correctly. (My husband took their wedding photos.)

I am also a ULC minister and have performed several weddings, and would be happy to stand in as a backup minister since you now have a whole lineup of potential ministers. I think your best bet might be to get married when we're in port in Puerto Rico, as Simalot said, since it's part of the US, but it really all depends on your state and who recognizes what. Congrats!

villicious

A friend of mine just got married this weekend on a Disney cruise, at Castaway Cay in the Bahamas (Disney's private island). However, he tweeted about getting the marriage license, which came from the state of Florida. I can ask what the legal logistics of that were if you'd like.

nay_ho

awesome. i think my only concern is the legality of it which is really just sorting out our marriage license. 

nay_ho

I just wanted to update here. We are getting married on the cruise! It's no longer a hypothetical. The cruise offers packages to get married on the boat out at sea, so I don't think it's a problem of legality, but I REALLY don't want that. I'd rather do it ourselves. If anyone is still interested in officiating for us, or just being our witness, please let me know. Chetman, I know you mentioned before you'd be up for it?

villicious

Oh, the answer I said I would give earlier but never gave is that they got a Florida marriage license and were married aboard in a private ceremony while the ship was still in port, under Florida law by someone (the captain? I'm not sure ... definitely one of the crew)  who could legally perform marriages in Florida.  Then their public ceremony for friends and family was on the Disney private island. I'm not sure who their officiant was, but they were already legally married at that point, so it wouldn't have mattered whether that person could perform marriages in the Bahamas.

Edit: Just looked it up because I was curious, and that's the way Disney does all their onboard weddings ... legal ceremony in the home port on embarkation day, public wedding at whatever venue later, because the senior officers who perform the weddings are not legally able to perform weddings at sea/at their venue in the Bahamas.

According to this USA Today article, Royal Caribbean's offering of marriages at sea is through an agreement with the government of the Bahamas, and before that agreement existed they could only offer marriages at port.

nay_ho

Thank you, Villicious! this is super helpful. We had discovered some similar information. As long as the paperwork is done to legal standards, it really doesn't matter what you do for a ceremony. So that's probably what we'll do. But with this new Royal Caribbean information, maybe I can get in touch with them directly. Tried that once before and All I got was a bot telling me to look at there wedding packages.... i don't want to do that.

chetman

Nay_ho, I would absolutely still be game, but right now it looks like I may not be able to make the cruise after all -- it's quite up in the air. (Thank goodness we bought insurance!)

I'm still hoping, but you should not make me part of your plans. If I get to cruise anyway, I'll happily clap and cheer, though. 

nay_ho

I'm sorry if you won't be able to go on the cruise! Don't worry about that! there's good news on the official front; 

Colorado lets you self solemnize. So we can actually officiate ourselves. But it would be cool to have witnesses. Also something that isn't necessary, but could be special. I hope you make it to the boat!

beth

hey, I just saw this.  I'd be thrilled to officiate, and it looks like you've worked out the legal side.

chetman

We're flipflopping frequently, but right now we're planning on coming. We'd love to witness too!

barnacles

Hi! Aside from some small sections of Mission, B.C. I can't legally marry you, but as Poop Pie-us The Purple, titular head of the Church of Zen Hedonism, I would love to witness. I can bring rubber chickens (our symbol) and deliver sacri-mints.