Couple first to wed in zero gravity

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla., June 22 (UPI) -- The New York couple who became the first to marry in zero gravity said the high altitude ceremony was "beautiful."

Saturday's wedding of Noah Fulmor, 31, and Erin Finnegan, 30, was broken into 30-second segments as the Zero Gravity Corp.'s modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft made parabolic arcs high in the atmosphere to simulate moments of weightlessness, WKMG-TV, Orlando, Fla., reported Monday.

"When you're floating, and it's under control, it's beautiful," Fulmor said after returning to Earth at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. "When you're twisting, all of a sudden someone has to grab you and steady you. There were moments that were absolutely as I had imagined them. The bouquet toss was as though it was staged in a movie, and we were watching it. It floated out and was caught effortlessly by one of the bridesmaids."

Richard Garriott, an investor in Zero Gravity Corp. and the son of an astronaut, officiated during the ceremony.

"It was a bit tricky," he said. "They had planned their own ceremony quite well. They broke it up into 30-second episodes of the wedding. For each parabola, we did one small exchange."

Garriott said it was the couple's love of space that led him to agree to officiate the first zero gravity wedding.

"If there's a couple who should be doing this first, they're clearly the ones," he said. "Noah and Erin are huge space fans."