There have been many specialty wedding options available for some time, on a ship, a train or a plane.  People have been married under water, and even from the end of a bungee cord.  Now there is one more alternative, a space wedding.

Rocket Plane Kistler Japan have teamed up with eco-wedding provider First Advantage Corporation to offer the ultimate in specialty weddings.

For 240 million yen (US$2.2Million) most everything is included.  Your wedding photo album and video, reception, accomidations in Japan, a live broadcast of your nuptials, marriage certificate,  and even the wedding dress.

The package includes four days of space training with the actual flight lasting about an hour, only about five to ten minutes of that is actually being weightless in space.  Because of the short amount of time actually in space, most of the ceremony is done on the ground with the happy couples vows completed aboard the space plane as they look out to see the curvature of the earth below them.

Even though they are based in Japan they will accept bookings from anywhere, and fully expect couples to come from China and parts of the Middle East.

The first space weddings are scheduled to start in 2011.

Six Russians will be on board the inaugural flight of the world’s first space travel agency, Virgin Galactic (VG), which is to launch suborbital passenger flights in 2010.

Igor Kutsenko, who runs an advertising firm in Moscow, told a VG news conference in the Russian capital that he and his business partner, Sergei Tyaglov, had bought tickets 18 months ago, and that he had also reserved tickets for his parents, both in their fifties.

Founder of the Virgin Group, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, earlier said he and some of his family members would take a flight on SpaceShipTwo a year or so before commercial flights are launched.

Tyaglov said: “I look to fulfilling my childhood dream.” The Tyaglovs paid $200,000 each for a thrill ride to the edge of space on the SpaceShipTwo, the first commercial six-passenger space vehicle. They will blast off from a launch pad currently being built in New Mexico.

…continue reading at Sify.com

Flightglobal.com has been hanging around the Mojave construction site for WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo hoping to get some exclusive shots, and it seems to have paid off!

The photo shows what is speculated to be the front structure of SpaceShipTwo.  The article also links to further analysis and reasons they believe it is SpaceShipTwo and not the front of WhiteKnightTwo.

Where ever the news breaks, you’ll always find it here.  July promises to be a big month for Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, so stay tuned!

Continue reading at FlightGlobal.com