On 1 February 2026 at 1400, Meghan O'Leary and Brian Tanner were married...at the South Pole!.
On 1 February 2026 at 1400, Meghan O'Leary and Brian Tanner were married...at the South Pole!.Both of them are wintering in 2026 in cargo/supply.
Groom Brian heading to the altar.
And bride Meghan, with flowers...er, coffee filters painted with water colors.
And the flower boy John Savoie who threw snow from a basket.
The altar...aka the Geographic South Pole.
The ceremony begins. The officiant was Chris Probst, who was authorized to make the marriage official, and the best man was Jake Shepp.
Meghan saying "I Do."
And the happy couple is off for their honeymoon...in the elevated station.Both Megan and Brian are from Alaska...Megan is from Seward. Here's a 5 February article from The Seward Folly about the ceremony. All of the above photos were provided by Brian.
There were three previous wedding ceremonies at Pole, presumably not official but I don't know...the first was on 11 February 1985 when Patricia Manglicmot and Randall Chambers were married by Navy chaplain LCDR Don Jukam. Neither of them wintered.
The second was on 1 or 2 February 1986 (as the participants were standing on opposite sides of the Date Line)...Sasha Zemenak, the winter cook, and station manager Lee Schoen. Lee had previously wintered doing research at the Arctic ice station T-3 in 1966.
The third ceremony...baker Erica Fickelsen and equipment operator John Johnstone, took place on 16 January 2005. It was officiated by Cookie John. Neither of them wintered. When I arrived in February for the winter there was still a "Wedding in Progress" sign in the beer can.