A couple have literally taken the plunge and showed the depth of their love at their wedding.
For both bride and groom are professional divers and decided they would like to take their vows in a giant tank full of seawater, so had bubbles underwater and bubbly as they sipped champagne later.
The bizarre wedding took place at the Underwater Centre in Fort William on Saturday. A crowd of around 100 attended to watch Dorota “Dot” Bankowska, 37, and James Abbott, 39, tie the knot at the world renowned centre’s onshore seawater tank.
The tank is normally used for underwater training and testing new equipment, and has depth of over 300ft.
Only a select few made it underwater with the bride and groom, and they included the maidens of honour, best man and marriage conductor for the ceremony itself while the rest waited above water level.
The ceremony was officiated by the centre’s air diver training manager Ali McLeod. The divers used advanced communications helmets known as Kirby Morgans, and the centre staff had rigged them to a sound system so that the wedding guests could hear what was being said underwater.
They tied the knot at Dorata’s home town of Plock in Poland last month but were keen to mark the occasion with friends from Scotland.
The bride trained at the Fort William centre and is a saturation diver on North Sea vessels. The groom is a PE teacher and outdoors instructor at Worcester and is able to scuba dive.
Dorota said: “We had the traditional ceremony with my family in Poland last month. I wanted to do something not so traditional. I joked about it with work colleagues in the centre, then I forgot about it. But a few weeks later they said they had arranged it.
“It’s great that my friends and family will be able to get a better idea of what my job is actually like, and the environment I work in.”
She added that they will go on honeymoon soon, well away from water: “I think we will go to the mountains for a change.”