A wedding at 32,000 feet occurred Sunday afternoon on board a Southwest Airlines flight somewhere over Arkansas, and the flight's passengers got the surprise of their lives. The passengers quickly popped up from their seats just to get a glimpse of the uncommon "I do's." The wedding at 32,000 feet is a first for Southwest.
The peculiar ceremony feet took place on Southwest's first non-stop flight from Nashville to the especially appropriate Dallas Love Field. The couple, Keith Stewart and bride Dottie Coven held the wedding at 32,000 feet in front of a 737 - tight-squeezed not impossible.
The couple said they had only 40 friends on the flight as guests. The rest of the 141 passengers on board the flight were all strangers, reports CBS 11. They inadvertently became wedding guests to Coven and Stewart's six-mile high wedding during the two-hour flight.
"How many of you thought you were going to a wedding today?," Ana Schwager, Southwest's community affairs and grassroots manager, asked over the intercom of Flight 4058 before the wedding.
According to USA Today, Keith and Dottie have accumulated more than a million Rapid Rewards points after travelling a lot for their jobs, making the wedding at 32,000 feet entirely possible. They traded in most of their points for 30 tickets of family and friends who they want to witness the unique ceremony up in the air.
As in classic weddings, Coven made it down the aisle in her white wedding dress and veil in tune to the rhythm of the music, but instead of walking, she danced. She eventually made it down the aisle toward her groom, Keith Stewart.
"A lot of things around flying tend to not be fun," said Coven. "Let's make it fun again!"
The couple was also prepared with a 4-year-old flower girl named Sydney, passing out peanuts to the passengers before the wedding at 32,000 feet.
"We are gathered here today - whether you intended to or not - to celebrate the wedding of Dottie Coven and Keith Stewart," the officiant said. "If anyone can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together let them push their flight attendant call button now," the officiant added, afterwhich guests bursted into laughter.
While the couple read their vows from their mobile phones, other people used theirs to capture the special wedding at 32,000 feet.
"I, Dottie, choose you Keith, to be my husband in front of our friends, our family, and random but very special guests," Dottie said.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride," the officiant said.
Coven, 44, and Stewart, 38, who both lived near Louisville, met two years ago via a dating website. Though having different jobs, with Coven in sales and Stewart in IT, the couple's work took them to different places across the country.
"We were literally sitting at a gate in Baltimore, waiting for a flight and just thinking what should we do? And we thought, 'What about getting married on a plane?,'" said Coven as she and then husband-to-be, Stewart, thought of having a wedding at 32,000 feet.
Stewart reportedly wrote to Southwest and asked if they would host such an event.
The airline recently became able to fly directly between Nashville and Dallas, amongst many others after the phase-out of the Wright Amendment. The amendment had restricted flights from Dallas Love Field to Texas and several nearby states.
Schwager, Southwest's community affairs and grassroots manager, said she thought of no other better way for the airline to bring the first Dallas-Nashville flight than a wedding.
"Dottie and Keith wrote a letter to Southwest saying, 'Hey, we want to do our wedding, we want to do it non-traditional ... can we get married on an aircraft?'" said Schwager. "So, of course, we loved that idea and knew that we had the perfect flight to Dallas Love Field."
Since the couple chose Southwest for the wedding at 32,000 feet, the airline agreed to send the couple to Puerto Rico for their honeymoon, one of the airline's new destinations.
While passengers of the flight were clearly surprised and would find the wedding at 32,000 feet memorable, it was more so for the newlyweds who walked off as Mr. And Mrs. Stewart. it was a trip they would never forget.
"Amazing. So fun. It was much better than we could have imagined," said Stewart. "We thought why not get married in an airplane. I mean we are in an airplane most of our time."
With the wedding at 32,000 feet over, everyone is now toasting the Stewarts a long and happy marriage, with little to no turbulence above and below the skies.
The video below, published Nov. 3, 2014, shows the couple getting hitched aboard Southwest Airlines' first non-stop flight from Nashville to Dallas Love Field.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
