Truly walking on air

Traditional-looking dress for a space-age wedding

It's the ultimate space nerd dream -  weightless wedding in space. Well, New York couple Noah Fulmor and Erin Finnegan made it happen, courtesy of the microgravity aeroplane 'The Vomit Comet', on June 20.

You can catch the action here, at World's first weightless wedding, but Wedding Cafe NZ was really interested in the dress – and whether it would stay decorous as Erin 'flew' around during her eight-minute weightless wedding ceremony.

Here it is before the Big Day, looking quite normal, and pretty too. The secret is pants underneath, but Japanese designer Eri Matsui still made it look cute. The dress was originally designed for the 2006 Space Couture Design Contest. Eat your heart out, Spock. The only compromise was the shoes. Erin didn't actually wear the nice white ones you see peeping out from beneath her dress, instead she got to wear some rather fuddy-duddy grey sock things for the wedding, as did Noah. Still, there was the reception afterwards.

Meteor ring

The final space touch was the ring, which was made with 'space rock' metal from the Gibeon meteorite that fell in prehistoric times, in Namibia.

Now, I know what you're all thinking… what about the, errrr, space honeymoon? Well, comments on the space.com website First Weightless Wedding Planned answer that one. One commentator says he thinks there's already been one, sort of, with a married couple flying on a NASA space mission.

"I guess they are the only two to truly know of they were the first to make 300-mile club," he says.

Both Erin and Noah say they are life-long space fans who would love to go into space but reckon they won't be able to afford to for 25 to 50 years.

The plane flew from the Kennedy Space Centre, at Cape Canaveral in Florida, and made steep dives to create the same weightless conditions that astronauts experience in space.

Catch up on more of the story on the couple's blog at: zero gravity wedding

Oh, the bride's Mum declined to witness the weightless ceremony, preferring to join the eccentric couple afterwards.

Picture credit: Bonnie Veronico

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