History Main / MarriedAtSea

** Spoofed by 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.

** Played straight at the end of ''The Surgeon's Mate'' when Stephen and Diana are married by William Babbington (former Aubrey's PluckyMiddie and later on [[NumberTwo trusted lieutenant]], now newly promoted to the captaincy of HMS ''Oedipus''), while crossing the English channel, having just escaped from France, thus restoring her British citizenship and allowing her to disembark in England. Turns out that Babbington is CrazyPrepared and even knows that the wedding procedure is just before the section on [[BurialAtSea burial service]] in his manual. They subsequently married again in church in a NoodleIncident between ''The Letter of Marque'' and ''The Thirteen Gun Salute'', because their first wedding was not recognized as canonical by the Catholic Church, which is a rather important point for Stephen.

* ''Literature/TheKingstonCycle'' by C.L. Polk: In Samindan culture, any ship's captain is authorized to perform marriages. Robin and her childhood sweetheart Zelinde were [[MyOwnPrivateIDo married in secret]] by a ferryman over Zelinde's family's objections, which somewhat bemuses Robin's family when they learn.

* The ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' fic "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/624465 Cold Feet]]" has a married in space version. Mal is kind of flustered when Wash asks him to do the ceremony for him and Zoe, but it seems he ultimately does it.

** [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The original series]] 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 TheFuture, 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.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Vigliotto Giovanni Vigliotto]], a famous fraudster, had married over a hundred women to swindle them out of their money. He managed to pull this trope off four times... with four passengers of the same liner on the same cruise.

** At the end of ''Literature/JediTrial'' Anakin Skywalker, in his capacity as a general in the Grand Army of the Republic, marries two of the book's secondary characters.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'':

-->-- '''Captain James T. Kirk'''[[note]]Later echoed by Capt. Picard and Admiral Ross[[/note]], ''Franchise/StarTrek''

* Almost done by Lily and Marshall in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' when the planning process for their wedding starts to get too stressful. They grab the rest of the gang, head to Atlantic City, locate a ship and a captain and are about to say I Do...when they suddenly decide that they actually ''do'' want the rest of their families and friends to be present for their marriage.

** [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Commander Sisko]] probably has the best claim of all of them, at least for the Bajorans, who consider him a MessianicArchetype. Sisko is also shown to marry some of his (non-Bajoran) troops. In an episode he lament the fact that he officiated a dead RedShirt's wedding.

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} at the end of Disney's ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''. Ariel and Eric are married on a ship, but they're married by a priest, not a captain.

* ''Film/TheAfricanQueen'' 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?)

** Played perfectly straight ''offscreen'' in ''[[ComicBook/XWingSeries X-Wing: 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 considered close enough according to New Republic law. [[note]]The New Republic hasn't been around all that long, so [[LoopholeAbuse there probably aren't any specific legal precedents either way]]. And if there AintNoRule saying he ''can't''...[[/note]]

* Almost done by Lily and Marshall in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''.

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} at the end of Disney's ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''. They're married by a priest, not a captain.

[[folder:Videogames]]

* In the RealLife legality of marriage performed by ship's captain varies according to the legislation of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_state flag state]] of the ship. There are some jurisdictions in which captains are not allowed to perform regular weddings, but can perform wedding in a 'case of emergency' (definition of ''emergency'' again depending on the national law - and [[FridgeLogic it can be presumed]] that in most of vehicle-related emergency situations TheCaptain would not give very high priority to someone's wedding ceremony - so the emergency most often would be the ''in articulo mortis'' LastWishMarriage when one of the spouses-to-be is dying), in some it even applies to [[TheSkyIsAnOcean captains/pilots in command of airliners]] - the logic being that they're ClosestThingWeGot to a public official/representative of the government onboard a ship.

* Lampshaded on ''Series/TheLoveBoat'', when Captain Steubing performs a mass wedding on (IIRC) the Valentine's Day cruise to Mexico. He specifically says that the Mexican government granted him special permission for the occasion.

* The original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' 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 TheFuture, 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 [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Captain Picard]] either, when he was asked to marry O'Brien and Keiko to each other.

The trope may have originated in the [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen 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. The real life marriages would be officiated not by the captain while at sea but instead by government officials during port calls.

* In the MargaretWeis/Tracy Hickman series ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'', the protagonist and miscellaneous refugees are escaping a catastrophe, and two characters ask the protagonist to marry them, citing this tradition. He agrees reluctantly.