A young couple working on a research ship mapping the wreck of the Titanic celebrated their wedding aboard the vessel on Sunday.

Maryann Morin and Jamie Kovacs met five years ago on a cruise to the Titanic site, about 600 kilometres south of Newfoundland.

Kovacs said he’d been preparing to propose to Morin for about a year. “I’ve been holding on to the ring for a while and just waiting for the right time," he said. "I was planning on doing it out at sea, maybe over the site or something, but the hurricane chased us off and now we start going separate directions — so it was then or never.”

Morin thought the timing was right, too.

The proposal and the ceremony, with the captain of the Jean Charcot officiating, happened aboard the ship as it made its way to St. John’s to avoid hurricanes bearing down on Atlantic Canada. Hurricane Danielle was forecast to pass south of Newfoundland on Monday.

A bedsheet was used to fashion a wedding dress for the impromptu nuptials. "This is the most beautiful woman in a bedsheet you have ever seen," said Kovacs, director of photography from the ship's remotely operated vehicles.

"Everybody made paper flowers," said Morin, who works in film post-production. "They stayed up all night long making a bouquet, and they were throwing rice."

The newlyweds said the ceremony couldn't have been more perfect.

"Coming in, the fog broke, actually just when we were getting married," the bride said. "The fog broke, the sun hit land, and it was just … it was beautiful. It's just a magical place."

The Massachusetts couple will celebrate with friends and family once they go home to Cape Cod.

The Jean Charcot is expected to return when the weather clears to its work using using high-tech cameras and acoustic equipment to produce three-dimensional maps of the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in April 1912 after striking an iceberg, killing 1,522 people. It lies on the ocean floor almost four kilometres beneath the surface.