Couple Married on Flight from Australia to New Zealand
In October, a man from Australia and a woman from New Zealand got married 11,000 meters in the air. David Valliant married Cathy Rolfe, now Valliant, on a Jetstar flight from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand.
Cathy got on the plane in her wedding dress, and David boarded in a tuxedo. Instead of walking down the aisle of a church, Cathy walked down the aisle of the plane to be married at the front by Robyn Holt, a member of the Jetstar ground crew, who also has a license to marry people.
The flight from Sydney to Auckland usually takes about three hours, and the ceremony ended as they were halfway between the two countries. A member of the crew caught the bouquet.
Holt said it was the first time she had married anyone in the air. However, the legal ceremony happened at Sydney Airport before the plane took off.
Cathy had posted her idea to get married on a plane on Jetstar's Facebook page. The airline agreed, and even prepared sweets and a "guest book" for passengers to sign.
Jetstar told CNN that all the other passengers "received an email saying there was going to be filming," though they were not told there would be a wedding. "The passengers enjoyed being a part of it," Holt said.
Cathy said that she and David were brought together by their love of planes. They met online in 2011 while playing the computer game Airport City, in which players build an airport and a town around it.
They met in person for the first time at Sydney Airport in 2013. David had even planned to propose on a flight from Brisbane to Melbourne, but he was too nervous, so he proposed that evening instead.
