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Msnbc.com // alan boyle blog // Aug. 9, 2004 | 6:15 p.m. ET


Déjà vu for space-crossed lovers: First bridegroom-in-space Yuri Malenchenko and his Russian-American wife, Kat Dmitriev, repeated their vows last week in a Russian Orthodox church service in Tutayev, north of Moscow.

Their first wedding ceremony, exactly a year ago Tuesday, was anything but orthodox. Malenchenko was serving as the commander on the international space station, while a family friend stood in for him during the service in Houston. Texas commonly allows such proxy ceremonies, but NASA and the Russian space agency required some extra convincing to cooperate.

The two had always said they intended to follow up on the unprecedented space wedding with a church service once Malenchenko returned from space, but it took several months to make the arrangements. Wedding planner Jo Ann Schwartz Woodward, who assisted with the long-distance wedding, offered "a little long-distance help" for the Russian ceremony as well, according to the Houston Business Journal.

Schwartz Woodward herself found out just today that the wedding in Russia was a done deal. "Yes, they got married on Wednesday," she told me. According to the Russian media reports, gleaned by NBC News space analyst James Oberg, the affair was conducted with the stealth of a Hollywood wedding: News photographers were banned from the church, and one paparazzo had his film confiscated.

The Hollywood parallel may be apt in yet another way: Schwartz Woodward says one filmmaker is already working on a documentary about Malenchenko and Dmitriev's love story.

 

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