01:00 AM EDT on Monday, June 21, 2004

Kristen Desvoyaux and Christopher Audette

The Norwegian Majesty, Boston

5.30.04

"It's different, and it's affordable," says Christopher Audette. "And we wanted something that was going to be stress-free."

As Christopher and his bride, Kristen Desvoyaux, are delivered via limo to the Black Falcon Cruise Terminal in Boston, the scene is somewhat chaotic. Christopher wonders whether it will be stress-free after all.

As arriving Norwegian Majesty passengers disembark from the 680-foot ship, Christopher, Kristen, and Kristen's mother, Cheryl, are busy on the dock rounding up their 75 guests, 26 of whom are sailing to Bermuda with the couple. They hunt down porters, then set off in search of someone from The Wedding Experience, which coordinates wedding packages for the cruise line.

Christopher, 28, and Kristen, 25, both grew up in Cumberland, in the same neighborhood, but their paths never crossed. After high school, Chris went to Rhode Island College. He also worked at Rojack's, where he met Kristen's mother, who asked Chris if he would mind calling her daughter, a senior at St. Raphael's who was thinking of going to RIC. That call led to a friendship, which led to the first date in February 1996. They went to the movies, saw The Muppets on Treasure Island.

At about this time, Chris got a manager's job at Rojack's: "a big promotion with a decent salary. Kristen and I knew very quickly that we had something special, so three months into the relationship, I bought her a ring, and gave it to her the night of her senior prom." After leaving the Casino at Roger Williams Park, they got Chinese food to take to her house. "I hid the ring in the fried rice."

But they had no plans to get married any time soon, because they wanted to get their careers under way. Soon, he said, "it became a pain addressing the issue, so I actually took the ring back." Eventually, they bought a house. Both got teaching jobs -- Chris in Providence, Kristen in Attleboro. And in May 2002, Chris took her back to Roger Williams Park, and proposed all over again.

Today, as Chris gets dressed in his aunt's cabin, he says: "I'm very sentimental." He wears cuff links that belonged to his Syrian maternal grandfather, Zachary Aissis.

He talks of his paternal grandparents, Arthur and Loretta Audette. Both grew up in Central Falls, but met on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. They married three months later, on Dec. 12, 1942. And they died, within 10 minutes of each other, on Dec. 12, 1996, their 54th wedding anniversary.

"Did you see the front page of The Providence Journal this morning?" asks Chris. There was a love story about a couple married for 60 years -- Leo and Loretta Audette. "A different Loretta Audette, of course, but I see it as a sign. It was my grandmother's way of congratulating me, of being here on my wedding day."

Each of the couple's guests is handed a little shopping bag upon boarding. Inside is a map of the 11-deck Norwegian Majesty -- with a circle marking the location of Frame 52, the ship's disco, where the ceremony and reception will take place -- and clever "seaworthy" edibles: Swedish Fish, Goldfish crackers, Life Savers, and saltwater taffy.