Ekaterina Dmitriev Malenchenko laughs as she puts her arm around a cardboard cutout of her new husband, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, following a long distance wedding ceremony between the couple Sunday, Aug. 10, 2003, in Houston. The couple were married via satellite downlink between the International Space Station and NASA.

The couple wed Sunday before family and friends in a private ceremony at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Malenchenko took part via video. Texas law allows weddings in which one of the parties is not present.

Because Malenchenko was preparing for his mission and there was no time to plan a wedding, they decided to get married while he was still in space. The couple was issued a marriage license July 17.

Officials with the Russian Aerospace Agency had tried to convince Malenchenko to delay the wedding until he returned to Earth, citing legal complexities and Soviet-era rules requiring military officers to get permission to marry foreigners.

The honeymoon will have to wait until after Malenchenko, who wore a bow tie with his blue space suit, returns to Earth in late October. They plan a Russian Orthodox wedding sometime next year.

Credit: AP Photo/Brett Coomer