Two passengers boarded a Southwest Airlines flight to Las Vegas intending to elope. Halfway through the trip, the crew made their plans very public.
Sara Arroyo Montalvo says that she and her now-husband were traveling alone to get married on August 13. It was their first time flying Southwest. The flight attendants learned what they were doing only because she asked whether they could use an apparently empty row to separate and finish writing their vows.
- The flight wound up full, so there was no extra row.
- Instead, the crew turned the aircraft into their wedding chapel.
- They fashioned a dress and veil from one-ply toilet paper, gave the couple Southwest paper crowns and bundled the airline’s heart-shaped coffee stirrers into a bouquet.
- And they had a ceremony with ‘178 witnesses.’
The newlyweds were flying a Boeing 737 MAX 8. In the video, they stand in the cabin as passengers at their seats hold phones and film. A Southwest pilot conducts the brief ceremony over the PA system.
He says that he’s been an ordained minister for more than 30 years and performed hundreds of weddings – but it’s his first time doing one inflight. The couple repeats short vows, he concludes with “Amen,” and the cabin erupts in applause.
Southwest’s Crew Found A Better Use For Toilet Paper
Within a day, the Facebook video had reached 86,000 views. Southwest’s official Instagram account asked permission to publish it on the airline’s own channels.
Most people online have been positive. A few thought it was tacky. Everyone else congratulates them, admires the bouquet and asking for a Southwest crown. One commenter realized they could now skip the chapel and begin the honeymoon.. right away (putting an “occupied” sign on the nearest lavatory).
This is the ceremony. It’s unlikely it made them legally married. In other words, it was… ceremonial.
A pilot has no special power to marry people while in command of the aircraft. He may be ordained to do so, but the ceremony is occurring in the state they’re flying over – which isn’t going to be the state in which they’d applied for their marriage license.
For a Nevada license, the ceremony must occur within the state and the officiant must be authorized to perform marriaged in Nevada (they don’t recognize authorization in another state as far as I can tell).
- If the pilot was authorized in Nevada, and they’d waited until the plane was over Nevada, that could work.
All contractual and other legal relations entered into by operators or passengers while in flight over this state have the same effect as if entered into on the land or water beneath.
- However, Nevada says the parties must declare that they take each other as spouses “in the presence” of the authorized officiant and a witness. If the pilot stayed behind the cockpit door and conducted everything over the public-address system, it’s unclear whether that satisfies the statute?
- Nevada has a saving provision for couples who genuinely believed an apparently authorized officiant had lawfully married them. That might cure a defect in the pilot’s authorization, but it wouldn’t seem to solve using a Nevada marriage license before the plane entered Nevada airspace (if they’d already gotten their marriage license, which seems relatively low probability).
Somehow Southwest’s Culture Survives
Southwest has eliminated open seating and two free checked bags, and keeps remaking itself to look more like every other airline. They’ve even done corporate layoffs for the first time in history – and not out of desperation, just efficiency.
This is really all that’s left of the old Southwest, not planned by management, with no budget, and using toilet paper and coffee stirrers. Flight attendants turned an ordinary flight into something passengers will remember for the rest of their lives. It’s the kind of thing that happens on Southwest, and doesn’t happen often elsewhere.
Southwest has done this before. In 2017 a flight attendant surprised an already-married couple with a second ceremony, complete with a toilet-paper veil and crowns fashioned from pretzel bags.
In 2021 a Southwest pilot held his own wedding on a Las Vegas–Salt Lake City flight after the aircraft crossed into Utah. Another pilot officiated and the wedding guests simply bought tickets on the flight.
That same year, a couple who met on a Southwest flight married with the pastor who had occupied their middle seat officiating. And in 2022 a Vegas-bound couple, beaten down by several delays, stopped waiting and got married on their Dallas Love Field–Phoenix flight.
This latest couple wanted a fun, spontaneous wedding without the expense and pressure of putting on a production for everyone they knew. Instead, they got a production staged by Southwest for everyone they didn’t know. For their first Southwest flight, the airline has set a high bar, which is something their people still can pull off.
*trying really hard to not yuck their yum* …congrats
THIS is why I don’t use Southwest. The last thing I want when traveling is to be captive to these silly antics.
@CHRIS – This is also why I avoid going to Las Vegas. Not to mention counting the days until Lake Mead finally goes “dead pool,” and takes Vegas with it.
Hmmm, Southwest, harking back to some of your old (and better) ways. Congratulations.