Okay, not really: A woman who plans to marry a Russian cosmonaut who is currently orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station has been issued a marriage license in Fort Bend County. Close enough!
Yuri Malenchenko, a member of international space station crew since April, will still be on the job in August when he marries an Earth-bound Soviet immigrant, 26-year-old Ekaterina Dmitritv.
Malenchenko, a 41-year-old Russian air force colonel, proposed to Dmitritv in December but doesn’t want to wait until his return in late October or early November to seal their extraordinarily long-distance relationship.
The couple will try for a telephone linkup during a wedding ceremony on both the space station and in Clear Lake, but if that doesn’t work, there’s a backup plan for a wedding by proxy, which is allowed under Texas law. A familiy friend, Houston attorney Harry Noe, will be on hand at the terrestrial ceremony to stand in for the groom if needed.
Somehow, I can just picture a FOX executive reading this story and mulling how to turn it into a reality show.
Anyway, all of us here at Off the Kuff send our best wishes to the happy couple. Mazel tov!
The space part is new, but I had an acquaintance who, while working in Bahrain 20 years ago, got married via telephone to a girl in Maryland. Sadly, I think the marriage ended in divorce; no word on whether it was alienation of affections or irreconciliable differences or what.