A Wedding Experience That Was
Out of This World!
UPDATE: Baby For the Space Couple! (Click for full article)
We were contacted by telephone around July 7th of this year by a bride inquiring about her upcoming wedding. She had mentioned that she had placed several calls to consultants of which she had found on a very popular wedding web site. Several consultants did not take this bride very seriously upon her explaining that her groom was presently in space and other never returned her calls until several days later. When I spoke to the bride, about an hour after receiving her call, I did have to pull my car over to continue our discussion regarding her unusual wedding!
As a psychiatric social worker in a previous life, I did have to wonder if this bride was for real when she explained that she wanted to have a wedding ceremony at NASA while the groom would be at the International Space Station during the ceremony. We set up a meeting to discuss her plans the following day and the experience took on a life of its own. After signing an agreement with the bride and meeting with the bride and her mother, we began to plan as we would with any other wedding the only difference being that we had one month to plan and the groom was in space!
We got to work quickly meeting with a bridal salon, florist, and a designer, reception site and made arrangements with a great DJ to provide music for the reception.
When the bride would narrow her selections to about 3 she would then e-mail her choices to space for her groom to have some input. I must say it was amazing for me to speak on several occasions to the groom while he was in space. This was way too cool! We worked very quickly to develop our timeline to make sure that everything would run exactly on time. When you are working with NASA, it was important that every detail was reviewed with their team and timing was everything. We had many security issues to address as no personal cameras were allowed and no gifts were admitted into the center. We had our excellent team in place and the wedding started on time with the groom waiting at the end of the screen to see his bride.
When we heard the Wedding March being played by Ed Lu, the American Astronaut on the keyboard from space, there was not a dry eye in the place. The amazing ability to see the groom and his best man in space with his bride on the ground at NASA being able to view each other by video satellite up link was breathtaking. The bride and groom were able to exchange their vows with the groom extending his hand for the bride to make the appearance of placing the ring on his finger. The ceremony was intimate which was hard for people who were not there to believe. The best man in space played the recessional as well.
After the ceremony the typical wedding pictures were taken and then they were off to the reception. The media coverage was intense prior to entering the reception. The bride gave a brief press conference as promised with pictures of she and her husband's life size cut out.
The reception was a great deal of fun for all the guests who joined the bride and her family. The bride did the typical Father / Daughter dance and will wait for the formal religious wedding to do the first dance with her husband. The guests dined on Russian favorites of the bride and groom and there were two cakes that were served.
The day following the wedding my husband and myself, along with the bride and her father were flown to New York to make an appearance on The Today Show, CNN and Fox News. I did several live radio talk shows on NPR, the BBC, local radio and TV appearances on CNN prior to the wedding. The media coverage has been outstanding and we could have never afforded to pay for this kind of advertising. We have received many bridal inquiries since the Space Wedding and have booked quite a few for next year. This wedding was a great deal of work and many more issues to address than the average wedding but we did it!
We have had an exciting experience, one that we will never have again. I think when it is all said and done, we would prefer to have both bride and groom with their feet firmly planted on the ground but? We can now say and mean it, that Schwartz & Woodward, coordinate weddings that are out of this world!
Jo Ann S. Woodward
Schwartz & Woodward
unique events ~ distinctive weddings
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