business over to a Miami-based outfit called The Wedding Experience.

It claims to be the largest such business in the cruise industry. It boasts the ability to get a couple married in virtually any cruise port in the world, roughly 150 at the last count, according to Barbara Whitehill, managing director. Her firm helped thousands of cruising couples tie the knot this past year.

With only rare exceptions, however, these marriages didn't take place while their ships are at sea. On occasion the ceremony may come during a cruise stop in port. But mostly they are performed aboard the ship prior to its embarkation. Then, with advance arrangements, a couple may have a full-blown formal ceremony aboard with a wedding party and guests in attendance.

It's not exactly unimportant that the cost of such a shipboard wedding is far less than anything comparable ashore in a hotel, Whitehill points out. For the Norwegian Cruise Line, for example, she has four wedding packages. For just under $800, her firm's wedding planner will oversee all wedding arrangements for a couple and up to six guests. The package price includes the actual ceremony, champagne, wedding cake and photography.

For about $2,400, a Grand Wedding Package will host up to 23 guests at a shipboard ceremony plus a two hour sit-down luncheon with wine, two-tier wedding cake, champagne, live music and photography.

Most any travel agent can direct interested couples to their cruise line or to The Wedding Experience in conjunction with a planned cruise. The outfit has wedding coordinators on call in cruise ports and they in turn have authorized officiants available to perform a non-denominational service. But should a couple want a member of the clergy, that, too, can be arranged.

Among the advantages of using such a professional outfit is that its resident wedding coordinators are familiar with such local requirements as the need in one Caribbean country to publish an announcement of a pending wedding three times in a local newspaper. In most jurisdictions, too, the couple must appear in person to take out a license but in others the application can be made and approved by mail.

For its part, Royal Caribbean International has its own Royal Romance wedding consultants based in Delta, British Columbia. It offers weddings in 14 ports of call, both onboard and ashore. Among the more unusual of these takes place in Juneau, Alaska.

There, the wedding couple and the officiant are whisked away from the port by helicopter to the top of Herbert Glacier. The chopper pilot and ship's photographer serve as witnesses to the dramatic, if not chilly, ceremony. RCI also offers weddings on Magen's Bay Beach on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Something of a boom in the cruise wedding business is expected this year when the new Norwegian Star will be based year-round in Hawaii. The opportunity to be married at Lahaina on the island of Maui, in Honolulu, or on the island of Kauai is expected to be particularly appealing to many couples, said Andrew Stuart, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Norwegian Cruise Line.

To take care of this expected new business, the Norwegian Star has a chapel aboard for small weddings but can accommodate hundreds of guests and a full wedding party in the Spinnaker's Lounge. As an option to its top-of-the-line wedding package in Hawaii, The Wedding Experience provides traditional Hawaiian touches: A young man begins the ceremony by blowing on a conch shell. Hula dancers then perform in advance of the entrance of the bridal party. Stewart said, "Hawaii is a perfect place in which to get married and then to honeymoon aboard ship." A shipboard ceremony is also quite appropriate for second marriages, he said.

Similarly, passengers sailing with Carnival Cruise Lines in the months ahead may be married aboard ship prior to sailing in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Port Canaveral or Key West, Fla.; New Orleans; Galveston, Texas; Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Calif.; Maui, Honolulu and New York City. Its Carnival Spirit was, in fact, the first cruise liner to have a chapel among its facilities.

Even if the cruise involves port calls outside the Continental U.S., a couple can be married aboard ship while in those ports. That's the case with Carnival's calls in Nassau in the Bahamas, San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Ocho Rios or Montego Bay, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, British West Indies, Barbados, and St. Maarten. In most of the Caribbean ports, in fact, the wedding can be held on the beach or at one of the local resorts.

While the packages offered by cruise lines fit the needs of most couples, there is an occasional pair that wants to get married ashore during a cruise but on their own. That was the case last summer involving George Musgrove of Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Sallyann Janowski, formerly of Detroit.

They had cruised to Alaska in the past, loved the state and decided to get married in June during a cruise aboard the Norwegian Sky out of Seattle. And they opted to take care of all the arrangements themselves which turned out to be not as formidable as it might have seemed.

They decided in advance that the wedding should be in their favorite Alaska town Ð Juneau. By using the Internet, Musgrove was able to get an Alaska marriage license application and details about marriage license. To help with other arrangements, they turned to Carol Pitts who heads up Orca Enterprises, a local tour operator that, among other programs, had whale watching tours.

When the Norwegian Sky docked at the Juneau harbor, Pitts had a white limo waiting at the gangway. It whisked the couple off to the vital statistics office where they got the license. From there it was off to where the ceremony was performed by a local marriage commissioner. It was over in time for the couple to head off whale watching for the afternoon and be back on board the Sky for its 6 p.m. sailing.

When they reboarded they found on their stateroom door a "just married" sign and a bottle of champagne for them at dinner at the ship's fine dining restaurant Le Bistro.

"We were treated like VIPs," said Musgrove. "The crew went all out for us."

Can't beat that for true romance at sea.