Wedding Couple Takes the Plunge on the Detroit River

In a unique wedding twist, the bride and groom got married on a historic Detroit mail boat.

"Please Mr. Postman" was the debut record for the girl group the Marvelettes in 1961. It was the first song on the Motown record label to go to #1 on the charts. Another historic first in Detroit happened on the mail boat J.W. Wescott as Mike Slusne and Julie Warner said their vows and tied the knot on board. The groom told Fox 2 Detroit, "I said ‘let’s do something unique’ and they put it together for us."

The J.W. Wescott was commissioned in 1874, and this was the first time that the vessel had been used as a floating wedding venue. It was originally used for delivering messages from land to ships in the Detroit River using the then high-tech method of "mail in a pail." In 1948, the 45' boat became an official U.S. Postal Service mail boat and soon would earn the world's first non-military floating postal ZIP code—48222.

Captain J.W. Wescott's great-grandson skippers the ship today and, things went so well for Mike and Julie that the company is considering becoming a unique, regular wedding and events venue on the Detroit River. A misstep on deck could give a whole new meaning to taking the plunge.