Bookings for weddings aboard the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection jumped 261% year over year, according to travel agency Fora’s 2026 Wedding & Honeymoon Trend Report, one of the clearest signs yet that couples are trading the beach arch and the backyard tent for a ship’s deck. The report, covering booking data and advisor surveys from March 2025 through February 2026, also found cruise weddings on Princess Cruises up 218% and on Norwegian Cruise Line up 198%, per Luxury Travel Advisor’s coverage of Fora’s findings. For decades, “destination wedding” meant a resort in Mexico or a vineyard in Napa. Now it increasingly means a moving ship, a captain performing the ceremony, and a guest list that can’t wander off before the toast.
Why Couples Are Choosing the Deck Over the Beach
The math behind a cruise wedding is straightforward once couples run it: the ship handles the venue, catering, lodging, and honeymoon in one booking, instead of coordinating five separate vendors for a beach ceremony that could get rained out anyway. Fora’s advisors reported that 54% saw increased destination wedding inquiries year over year, and 53% saw more domestic destination bookings specifically, suggesting the shift toward cruise weddings is happening alongside a broader move away from purely local ceremonies rather than replacing them entirely. A captive guest list matters too: once everyone boards, there’s no risk of half the wedding party skipping the reception for a better restaurant reservation onshore.
The Domestic Destinations Also Surging
Cruise ships aren’t the only unconventional venue gaining ground. Fora’s report found Martha’s Vineyard wedding bookings up 278% year over year, South Carolina up 157%, Las Vegas up 145%, and Montana up 143%, alongside Utah’s 113% climb. The common thread across nearly every destination on the list is scenery that doesn’t require an overseas flight, paired with a level of exclusivity that a generic hotel ballroom can’t match. Couples appear to be optimizing for a memorable, photographable setting that guests will actually talk about years later, rather than the most convenient location for the largest number of relatives.
Honeymoons Are Following the Same Pattern
The report’s honeymoon data tells a similar story about splurging on experience over convention. Sixty-four percent of Fora’s clients are spending $10,000 or more on their honeymoon, and 15% are spending over $20,000, with 90% of advisors saying couples are willing to stretch financially for the right trip. International honeymoon bookings to Kenya are up 295% and to Tanzania 287%, and fall travel to Japan is up 178%, suggesting the same couples chasing an unconventional wedding venue are carrying that same instinct into how they spend the weeks immediately after. Safari honeymoons in particular have moved from a niche splurge to a genuine category, per the report, running alongside cruise weddings as two sides of the same shift toward booking an experience nobody else in the friend group has already done.
What a Cruise Wedding Actually Involves
The logistics differ meaningfully from a land-based destination wedding, and that’s part of the appeal. Most cruise lines cap onboard wedding ceremonies at a set guest count tied to the ship’s public deck space, and the officiant is typically the ship’s captain, which sidesteps the marriage-license paperwork couples would otherwise have to navigate in a foreign port. Because the venue, catering, lodging, and entertainment are bundled into one itinerary, couples get a single price to plan around instead of separately negotiating a venue rental, a caterer, a florist, and a room block, which is a large part of why the format is proving cheaper than a comparable land-based destination wedding of the same size. It also means bad weather, a persistent risk for outdoor beach ceremonies, becomes far less likely to cancel or relocate the entire event.
What This Shift Says About Modern Weddings
A wedding at sea used to read as a niche choice for retirees or elopement-minded couples avoiding a big production. The numbers now suggest it’s becoming a mainstream alternative to the venues that have dominated wedding planning for generations, driven by couples who want an experience their guests can’t replicate at a Saturday afternoon backyard ceremony. Whether that momentum holds once cruise lines adjust their pricing to match the demand is the open question worth watching heading into next year’s booking season. For now, the deck has quietly become one of the most requested aisles in the country.
