Married at sea

VIEW MORE PHOTOS FROM ALISON & CHRISTOPHER’S WEDDING

The bride wore a thrift-store dress, and a parasol stood in for the veil. The groom, a vintage cutaway coat and a pith helmet. A friend officiated. Although the bill totaled less than $2,000, it was not a pauper’s wedding, and though it took only a week to plan, it was eighteen years in the making.

This was the wedding of transplanted Brits Alison David and Christopher Bird. The proprietors of The English Butler, a tea room on Winter Street in Edgartown, seized the opportunity of having Alison’s daughter here on vacation last August to enter wedded bliss aboard the Black Dog Tall Ship Alabama.

“I have a real passion for the tall ships,” Alison explains. “When you have these kinds of girly conversations with your friends – where would you get married if you had a choice, the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas or wherever – for me it was always a tall ship.” So, when the couple heard that the Alabama had a rare, slow weekend looming, they jumped at the chance and were married on a sunset sail out of Vineyard Haven harbor. In fact, the couple simply bought enough tickets for their guests on a regularly scheduled trip. Said daughter, Laura David, acted as maid of honor, and Jamie Douglas, of the Black Dog clan, played the bagpipes in full Scottish attire.

Alison and David met eighteen years ago at a barbecue in Bristol, England. Alison was recently divorced, and she and a sympathetic, also-divorced pal had made a pact that whomever they dated would have to meet certain criteria. Frankly, Christopher did not, but Alison explained to her friend that she really, really liked him, so she was released from the pact – for three weeks. Then another three weeks. After eighteen years of “three weeks,” traveling around the U.S., then relocating to Edgartown, the couple married precisely the way that suited them.

“Throwing lots of money at a wedding doesn’t guarantee anything in my view,” Alison insists. “It was about the romance of it. It was about our friends and about doing exactly what we wanted to do on the day.” K

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PHOTO ALBUM: Married at sea

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