It's the ultimate in summer-winter marriages: a younger woman marrying a much, much MUCH older man for his, well, booty.
Three hundred years older.
Also, he's a pirate.
Amanda Teague, a 45-year-old woman from Northern Ireland and Jack Sparrow impersonator, recently married Jack Teague, the ghost of a 300-year-old Haitian pirate.
Or as I like to call him, the Dead Pirate Roberts.
The two were married in 2016 in a lovely little ceremony off the coast of Ireland where the laws of posthumous marriages are murky.
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According to a story in The Irish Sun newspaper (official motto: "Like the National Enquirer, but with a dead sexy accent."), Amanda was tired of real flesh-and-blood men. She had already divorced her "physical being" husband of six years and father of her five children several years ago. And I'm guessing she didn't have much luck dating other physical beings after that either.
Instead, she met the love of her afterlife — her soulmate, as it were — in 2014 when she was laying in bed one night and felt a spiritual energy next to her. She said she wasn't immediately interested in a relationship with Jack until she discovered she could communicate with him.
That's when things got interesting.
They had a two year relationship where they would watch TV, take car rides together, and just really talk. I'll bet Jack is a good listener who never interrupts, and always lets Amanda watch whatever she wants. After a while, Amanda began developing "strong loving feelings toward him."
One day Jack told Amanda that they could actually be together. She did some research and found that a relationship between a spirit and a human was possible. "But," she said, "not many people like to talk about it."
Color me surprised.
But Amanda didn't just want to "be together." As she told The Sun, "I told him I wasn’t really cool with having casual sex with a spirit and I wanted us to make a proper commitment to each other. If I am going to be in a long-term relationship with somebody I have the right to be married."
So Jack popped the question and asked if they could spend the rest of her life together.
Despite having been a pirate in the 1700s, Amanda wasn't worried about his troubled past. Jack had been executed for thievery in Haiti, but being dead for 300 years has a way of changing people. I'm sure not being able to steal for nearly 300 years has a way of diminishing that urge.
But not all urges have diminished for the Dead Pirate Roberts.
The couple has a relatively normal life. They talk, argue, and even have sex. (Don't ask.) And they go to movies, or she'll take him out to dinner or to her local pub and buy him a drink. (He prefers rum). She sets a place for him at dinner, and while Jack can't actually eat food himself, she says he can experience it through her.
Amanda already felt she had found a kindred spirit, so to speak, as she is a Jack Sparrow impersonator. She even changed her name from Amanda Large to Amanda Sparrow Large in honor of her pirate impersonation work. She then took on her new husband's last name of Teague when they took the plunge.
The ceremony was held on a small boat off the shores of Ireland. The boat could only hold 12 living beings, so they invited their closest family and friends. Well, her closest family and friends, since Jack's friends have also been dead for 300 years.
Amanda and Jack wanted the wedding to be legally recognized, so they went out into international waters and hired a shaman to perform the actual ceremony.
"I wanted the big traditional wedding with the white dress, it was very important to me."
And Jack was handsome in his white bed sheet with two holes cut out for his eyes.
To make the ceremony official, they also brought a medium who had to say "I do" on Jack's behalf. As Amanda told the New Zealand Herald, "Obviously I can't speak for him but there has to be verbal consent from both people. If I gave consent on his behalf it would put a question mark over the authenticity of the marriage."
That's smart thinking. Because if anything is going to stamp a big ol' question mark on this marriage, it's the ghost's wife saying "I do" on a boat in international waters on behalf of a 300-year-old pirate ghost.
And now, Amanda and Jack are writing a book about spiritual relationships and marriages for other desperately single people.
I'll let you make your own ghostwriter jokes.
"There are a lot of people out there who don’t know about spiritual relationships, but it could be right for them," said Amanda. "I want to get the message out there."
Oh, believe me, it's already out there.
Photo credit: "Blackbeard the Pirate," engraved by Benjamin Cole, circa 1724 (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
The 3rd edition of Branding Yourself is now available on Amazon.com and in your local Barnes & Noble bookstore.
Three hundred years older.
Also, he's a pirate.
Amanda Teague, a 45-year-old woman from Northern Ireland and Jack Sparrow impersonator, recently married Jack Teague, the ghost of a 300-year-old Haitian pirate.
Or as I like to call him, the Dead Pirate Roberts.
The two were married in 2016 in a lovely little ceremony off the coast of Ireland where the laws of posthumous marriages are murky.
Instead, she met the love of her afterlife — her soulmate, as it were — in 2014 when she was laying in bed one night and felt a spiritual energy next to her. She said she wasn't immediately interested in a relationship with Jack until she discovered she could communicate with him.
That's when things got interesting.
They had a two year relationship where they would watch TV, take car rides together, and just really talk. I'll bet Jack is a good listener who never interrupts, and always lets Amanda watch whatever she wants. After a while, Amanda began developing "strong loving feelings toward him."
One day Jack told Amanda that they could actually be together. She did some research and found that a relationship between a spirit and a human was possible. "But," she said, "not many people like to talk about it."
Color me surprised.
But Amanda didn't just want to "be together." As she told The Sun, "I told him I wasn’t really cool with having casual sex with a spirit and I wanted us to make a proper commitment to each other. If I am going to be in a long-term relationship with somebody I have the right to be married."
So Jack popped the question and asked if they could spend the rest of her life together.
Despite having been a pirate in the 1700s, Amanda wasn't worried about his troubled past. Jack had been executed for thievery in Haiti, but being dead for 300 years has a way of changing people. I'm sure not being able to steal for nearly 300 years has a way of diminishing that urge.
But not all urges have diminished for the Dead Pirate Roberts.
The couple has a relatively normal life. They talk, argue, and even have sex. (Don't ask.) And they go to movies, or she'll take him out to dinner or to her local pub and buy him a drink. (He prefers rum). She sets a place for him at dinner, and while Jack can't actually eat food himself, she says he can experience it through her.
Amanda already felt she had found a kindred spirit, so to speak, as she is a Jack Sparrow impersonator. She even changed her name from Amanda Large to Amanda Sparrow Large in honor of her pirate impersonation work. She then took on her new husband's last name of Teague when they took the plunge.
The ceremony was held on a small boat off the shores of Ireland. The boat could only hold 12 living beings, so they invited their closest family and friends. Well, her closest family and friends, since Jack's friends have also been dead for 300 years.
Amanda and Jack wanted the wedding to be legally recognized, so they went out into international waters and hired a shaman to perform the actual ceremony.
"I wanted the big traditional wedding with the white dress, it was very important to me."
And Jack was handsome in his white bed sheet with two holes cut out for his eyes.
To make the ceremony official, they also brought a medium who had to say "I do" on Jack's behalf. As Amanda told the New Zealand Herald, "Obviously I can't speak for him but there has to be verbal consent from both people. If I gave consent on his behalf it would put a question mark over the authenticity of the marriage."
That's smart thinking. Because if anything is going to stamp a big ol' question mark on this marriage, it's the ghost's wife saying "I do" on a boat in international waters on behalf of a 300-year-old pirate ghost.
And now, Amanda and Jack are writing a book about spiritual relationships and marriages for other desperately single people.
I'll let you make your own ghostwriter jokes.
"There are a lot of people out there who don’t know about spiritual relationships, but it could be right for them," said Amanda. "I want to get the message out there."
Oh, believe me, it's already out there.
Photo credit: "Blackbeard the Pirate," engraved by Benjamin Cole, circa 1724 (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
The 3rd edition of Branding Yourself is now available on Amazon.com and in your local Barnes & Noble bookstore.