As custodian of the most regal of all ships in the cruising community for 50 years or more, Cunard has always more or less played by its own rules. It is, after all, British and nobody tells the Brits they have to fall in line by doing this or doing that.
So when Cunard announced the other day that it may allow weddings on cruising’s royal 
family for the first time, the tendency was to think:
“Aw, isn’t that nice?”
Think again.
It’s all about the money.
To allow weddings to become a profit center, as they are for almost every other cruise line, Cunard has to re-register its ship(s). Under English law, weddings must be held in a publicly accessible place. Once the ship leaves the dock in Southampton, public accessibility ends.
Changing a ship’s registry to Bermuda, which flies a reasonable facsimile of the British flag, would enable Cunard to tap into the substantial wedding business. Right now, the idea of changing the registry to one or all three ships is being floated, to test the waters.
Or to find out, as our colleague Phil Reimer at Ports and Bows asks:
“Does Her Majesty know about this?”