Couple gets married near US-Canada border so grandparents can watch from boat

Bride says of unique wedding: ‘I wouldn’t change anything about it’

Couple marries along US-Canadian border so families can watch (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A newlywed couple was able to ensure the bride’s grandparents were able to watch their wedding despite border closures by having a waterfront ceremony on the US-Canadian border.

Alex Leckie and Lindsay Clowes, from Canada, originally planned to marry in August, but were forced to postpone the wedding due to the coronavirus pandemic.

While a loosening of restrictions on gatherings meant that the couple could now safely marry in Canada with under 50 guests, Clowes was disappointed that border closures meant her friends and family in Maine, where she grew up, wouldn’t be able to attend in person.

Currently, any international visitors are required to quarantine for two weeks, which was unrealistic for most guests.

However, rather than relying on Zoom, the bride came up with the idea to have the ceremony  on a wharf along the St Croix River in St Stephen, New Brunswick.

From the location, the bride’s family, located in Calais, Maine, could watch from a boat on the river that divides the two countries.

To pull off the wedding day stunt on 10 October, the wedding party relied on a 19ft skiff used for hauling lobster traps - which offered the perfect view for the bride’s grandparents, a great-aunt, an aunt and uncle.

The rest of Clowes’ family was able to watch from the Maine shore, where a Facebook livestream of the ceremony played.

Of the unique solution that allowed her family to watch her wedding from both sides of the border, Clowes told the AP: "It was happy and emotional and overwhelming.”

And while it wasn’t the wedding that she and her new husband had originally planned in Nova Scotia, the newlywed told CNN that it ended up being even more special.

“It couldn’t have gone any better. I wouldn’t change anything about it,” she said. “It turned out to be a lot more special than anything else we could have done.”