In reporting a story about the slowly growing number of romance options and packages on river cruises for this coming Monday's Travel Weekly, one issue that cropped up was whether river cruise lines can and should be marketing themselves as an option for destination weddings.
In some ways, smaller ships seem ideal for hosting intimate destination weddings. But the issue is the legalities: river cruise lines report that it's quite complicated to obtain marriage licenses in Europe, which is one reason they typically don't offer destination wedding services.
However, Amadeus River Cruises said it has hosted destination wedding groups that have done full-ship charters with the company before, and U by Uniworld encourages the idea as well, so it appears to be doable. And depending on what the couple prefers, they could conduct a legal marriage ceremony in the U.S. and have a symbolic ceremony abroad.
I have often thought how fun it would be to have the occasion to do a full-ship charter of a river cruise, come together with 100 or so friends and family for a week and sail through Europe together. And what better excuse to do so than celebrating a couple's nuptials?
Of course, it would take some pretty serious investment from guests, to shell out for both the international flight and for their cabin, not to mention the extended time away from work to experience a week-long cruise. But with all the crazy destination weddings couples pull off both near and far, one would think that tying the knot on a river cruise would fall somewhere within the spectrum of acceptable destination wedding concepts.
Not to mention that as inventory continues to bulk up on the rivers of Europe, surely lines are looking for new and emerging markets to tap into. So, while I don't think there is going to be a flood of interest in trying to make river cruising the next hot destination wedding option, I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see river cruise lines dip their toes a bit more into this market. They've already been marketing themselves more to honeymooners in recent years, so this would seem like the next logical step down the aisle.