And now, apparently, it includes ghost weddings -- at least when the marriage is to a pop-culture figure.
Which brings me to the story of Amanda Teague, a woman from Northern Ireland, mother of five, and Jack Sparrow impersonator. Teague is also a newlywed, having recently married "Jack," a 300-year-old ghost pirate who resembles the Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean character.
According to Metro UK (via Triangle News) Teague met Jack as a friend, through their pirate connections, and became close, before falling in love.
‘One day he said to me ‘We can actually be together you know’ but I had never heard of an intimate relationship between a spirit and a human before," said Teague. "I did some research and found out that it is a real thing and there are lots of people in spiritual relationships, but not many people like to talk about it."
Jack -- a Hatian pirate with jet-black hair, and had been executed for his crimes in the 1700s -- had never married, and the divorced Teague felt it important to be properly married instead of having casual sex with one another.
(And yes, Teague said you can have sex with a spirit and feel many of the same things, but the sensations are "deeper." Jack also fiddles with stereos and lights -- like any old husband, he probably plays one too loud, and turns off the latter as he moans, "Who left all these lights on?")
After Jack proposed, Teague enlisted the help of a medium, donned a white dress, and head to international waters with 12 of her friends and family. Jack, meanwhile, was represented by way of his skull-and-crossbones flag.
OK, so you're probably thinking this is the point where I should insert some snarky comment. But, nope. Certainly, it strikes me as very un-pirate like for a scoundrel such as Jack Sparrow to evolve -- but, hey, people evolve and change, and this is honestly a more interesting character development than I've seen in any of the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Besides, if Teague truly feels more of a connection with the ghost than she does with human dates, more power to her. She has officially more out about dating than the rest of us.
Final thought: I need to discover if Teague is Amanda's ghost-married name, since that's also movie Jack's surname. Give me a shout if you find out.
-Aaron Sagers