The jet-pack wedding and 5 other extreme nuptials

From getting hitched underwater to saying "I do" on the wing of a plane, these couples are leaving the altar and the aisle far behind

Grant Engler and his new wife Amanda celebrate after their wedding ceremony to which they arrived via jet pack suits over the Newport Beach, Calif., harbor.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)

"Most brides choose to have their dad walk them down the aisle on their wedding day," says Katie Kindelan at ABC News. But Amanda Volf "chose a jet pack instead," flying across the water before landing at her wedding ceremony on the shores of Newport Beach, Calif. Her husband-to-be, Grant Engler, also flew to the ceremony with one of the $90,000 gadgets, in what is "being billed as the first jet-pack wedding in history." But Volf and Engler are not the only bride and groom to think outside the box when it comes to their nuptials. Here, five other couples who scoffed at the traditional wedding and went extreme:

1. The bungee wedding

When they got hitched in November 2008, Sandra Eens and Jeroen Kippers took a big step — off a 150-foot platform. The couple was the first to patronize Marriage in the Sky, a company that allows people to get married while bungee jumping. Eens and Kippers "took their vows in front of a minister before going over the side and locking lips upside down," says Britain's The Telegraph.

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2. The underwater wedding

"We've all seen wedding day meltdowns, when things just don't go exactly the way the bride and groom plan," says David Moye at The Huffington Post. "The stakes are raised slightly, however, when everyone in the wedding party is wearing a snorkel." That's what Alberto Dal Lago and Karla Ysunza did off the coast of Mexico in July 2011, inviting more than 200 guests to attend their underwater ceremony. Dal Lago and Ysunza had hoped to break the record for the most people at an underwater wedding, but fell just short of the record of 261 set in 2010 by Francesca Colombi and Giampiero Giannoccaro in Italy.

3. The marathon wedding

Mary Martin and Raymond Donaldson met while jogging, so they thought it would be appropriate to get hitched while running the New York City Marathon in 2011. The bride and groom exchanged their first sweaty kiss as husband and wife at the 22-mile mark and went on to finish the race. Oh, and the minister who officiated at the wedding, a competitor in the Ironman triathlon, was with them all the way.

4. The Mount Everest wedding

Moni Mule Pati and Pem Dorjee Sherpa might take the cake when it comes to mixing weddings and endurance sports: In March, they became the first couple to marry atop Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, taking off their oxygen masks just long enough to complete the ceremony. They stayed on the peak for only about 10 minutes to allow friends to take photos, and then descended.

5. The plane-wing wedding

Darren McWalters and Katie Hodgson decided to imitate James Bond for their nuptials in 2008. Each stood on the top wing of a biplane, dressed to the nines, while a third plane between them carried the Rev. George Bringham. Their wedding guests watched the ceremony, which was conducted using a PA system, from below. "It was just unbelievable," McWalters told Britain's Metro. "Looking down and seeing my family and friends below was just incredible."

Sources: ABC News, The Himalayan Bazaar, The Huffington Post, Metro, The Telegraph, The Week

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