Japanese firm offers weddings in space

Couples will soon be able to get hitched in space

Japanese company First Advantage is offering couples the chance to get hitched in space.

The firm will provide the happy couple with a rocket capable of taking them, a priest and two witnesses 100km up to get married in freefall.

Most of the service will be conducted on the ground, but the couple will exchange vows while enjoying a few minutes of weightlessness.

The capsule then returns to Earth and the newlyweds can get on with their honeymoon.

The wedding package costs $2.4m and First Advantage expects it to be popular with wealthy couples from Asia and the Middle East.

The flights are being organised with US space tourism company Rocket Plane, based in Oklahoma.

Freefall weddings are only part of a predicted boom in space tourism, which many firms believe is now viable.

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is already taking deposits for its first flight, as too is a Spanish space hotel, and the US government has prepared regulations for space tourists.