Written by: Publisher • December 3, 2014• In the Community

A Free Wedding in The Bahamas With All The Trimmings, But There’s Just One Catch

For those dreaming of holding a wedding on a Bahamas tropical island, with travel by seaplane, a honeymoon suite named for Ernest Hemingway, tasty local food and beverages and a ceremony performed by a local sea captain, then the historic Bimini Big Game Club Resort & Marina just might have a deal of a lifetime for you.

It’s complimentary, free, no charge for the couple‹ and for friends and family in the wedding party who stay four nights, they will get the next two nights free.

What’s the catch, you may ask?

Well, the wedding ceremony will be performed in an at-the-dock shark cage, with a front row view of huge, hungry bull sharks, which arrive daily for their feeding.

Several weeks ago, the historic Bimini resort, just 50 miles east of Miami/Fort Lauderdale put out the call for video submissions from couples looking to take on the challenge of a wedding ceremony in a shark cage complete with a local dive captain conducting the ceremony.

So far, there have been few takers, however, resort management has hopes of a last minute rush for more entries.

“It’s totally safe, you don¹t have to be SCUBA rated and talk about a unique wedding that will be the envy of your friends and family,” said Diana Weber, sales and marketing director for the 51-room resort in quaint Alice Town. “We’ve extended the submission program through the end of December.”

According to Weber, all couples need to do is to submit a video to the resort’s Facebook page and make their best case as why they should be chosen. The winner will be announced on December 30th based on the most “likes” received on the Facebook video posts. The wedding must be scheduled prior to May 16th, and the couple needs to file paperwork two days prior to the wedding ceremony in the Bahamas and they must have passports.

The resort in return offers complimentary roundtrip air travel (Fort Lauderdale/Bimini) aboard a seaplane courtesy of Tropic Ocean Airways, six nights in the plush Hemingway Suite and complimentary food and beverages. Captain Devito Bullard, the resort¹s dive boat captain, will conduct the ceremony in the resort¹s Bimini Bull Run shark encounter cage, which is attached to the dock located in the Bimini Big Game Club Marina.

This famous Island in the Stream where writer Ernest Hemingway battled hungry sharks while trying to land marlin and tuna is home to some 13 species of sharks. According to the Bimini Biological Field Station, the bull shark joins 12 other species of sharks found in the shallow water off Bimini. These species include Great Hammerhead, Lemon, Caribbean Reef, Tiger, Blacktip, Nurse, Blacknose, Atlantic/Caribbean Sharpnose, Mako, Spiny Dogfish and Bigeye Thresher and Smooth Hound.

Last year, the Big Game Club Resort and Marina, www.biggameclubbimini.com made international news with the opening of Bimini Bull Run Shark Cage, a first for the global shark diving industry, providing divers and non-divers shark encounters from the safety of specially designed cage systems attached directly to the docks. The system employs a unique ³Hooka¹ air system, allowing non-certified divers to experience the opportunity in addition to those certified divers who would prefer to SCUBA.

About Bimini

Set in the midst of forever moving cobalt blue and turquoise green waters, Bimini may only be a mere 50 miles due east of Miami but this Bahamas outpost is light years distant from the hustle and bustle of South Florida.

From the Lucayan Indian word meaning “two islands,” North and South Bimini along with its smaller cays, is part of the Bahamas, an archipelago of 700 islands sweeping across 500 miles of open ocean.

For generations of angling and diving enthusiasts, Bimini has been and remains the gateway to the Bahamas, a portal to adventure and experience perched at the edge of a sheer underwater cliff and the eastern edge of the mighty and mythical Gulf Stream.

Legendary angler and western novelist Zane Grey and his captain, Tommy Gifford, recluse billionaire Howard Hughes and retailing genius turned scientist/naturalist Michael Lerner heard the call of Bimini. Ernest Hemingway was an early apostle to the Bimini experience in the 1930s, where he drank, brawled and wrote his way through several fishing seasons, traveling back and forth between home in Key West and his beloved “Island in the Stream.” His creative workshop was the Compleat Angler and his characterizations came from a world populated by giant blue marlin, bluefin tuna and schools of sharks almost too large to count. With his literary acclaim and sporting prowess, Hemingway, together with countless other kindred spirits, established Bimini as the Big Game Fishing Capital of the World‹home today to some 50 world record catches and counting.

In the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King along with his favorite Bimini bonefish guide, Ansil Saunders, would quietly boat out to the famous Bimini “Healing Hole” where Dr. King would gather inspiration and ideas for some of his most famous speeches. He worked on some of his speeches at a cottage at the Big Game Club Resort, which now carries a plaque in memory of his stay.

Bimini has always made headlines and inspired myths, starting with its mysterious Gulf Stream vortex where compasses spin wild to the much-debated Bimini Road, a series of uniquely formed underwater stone formations, which some think is a pathway to the lost Atlantis. The tiny island, after all, is part of the legendary Bermuda Triangle.

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Last modified: December 3, 2014