On August 10, 2003 the weather in Huston in the state of Texas appeard to be warm but according to meteorologists data that day cold have seen thunderstorm. Nevertheless even the hail couldn’t spoil the wedding of Russian-American Ekaterina Dmitriyeva and Yuri Malenchenko, as the latter was at about 380km hight above New Zealand.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko proposed to his beloved in December 2002, the wedding ceremony was planned for August but because of sudden shifts in flight schedule it appeared that Malenchenko had to be onboard the ISS on the date of wedding. Nevertheless this fact didn’t stop the couple, moreover according toTexas legislation the marriage could be effected without physical attendance of one of the parties provided that there is a reasonable excuse for it.

The ceremony took place in spacebridge mode with about 200 attendants. Yuri Malenchenko’s friend signed the official documents on his behalf; the bride was wearing a wedding gown and the groom added bow tie to the standard cosmonauts uniform. Just married waved kisses to each other via videocommunication. American astronaut Edward Lu acted as a groomsman and played Mendelson’s march using portable keyboard.

That “wedding” flight was the third one for Yuri Malenchenko. The authorities were displeased with the fact of the wedding onboard the ISS and nobody will be able to repeat such trick anymore as there was a point ad
ded to the contract the cosmonauts sign before flying to the ISS prohibiting carrying out wedding ceremony onboard the ISS. American astronauts being a married couple can’t fly to the ISS as since 1992 NASA prohibited the relatives to work onboard the ISS together.