WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 5, "Charades".The pre-wedding ritual conducted by the families of Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) and T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the latest entry in the canon of the best Star Trek episodes about weddings or wedding rituals. Although legendary USS Enterprise Captains Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and James T. Kirk (William Shatner) never married, they have officiated wedding ceremonies between crew mates. "Since the days of the first wooden vessels" Captains have had the privilege of officiating wedding ceremonies, but marriage on a Starfleet vessel is often fraught with life-threatening danger on top of the usual domestic crises.
Star Trek isn't just concerned with the marriages of Starfleet officers, and its exploration of the wedding rituals of the other species in its vast fictional universe often provides a great deal of relatable humor. The meeting of Spock's mother Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner) and T'Pring's parents T'Pril (Ellora Patnaik) and Sevet (Michael Benyaer) is incredibly relatable in its awkwardness. As always with Star Trek, the wedding episodes allow an opportunity to explore real-world themes of gender roles and politics, and sometimes they just provide a great excuse for the characters to let their hair down.
10 Star Trek: DS9 - "The Muse"
Odo and Lwaxana Troi's marriage in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "The Muse" is a welcome distraction from a weak episode about a mysterious alien female helping Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) write a novel. Troi and Odo's wedding is a sham, designed to protect her from being separated from her unborn son. If she remains with her current husband Jeyal (Michael Ansara), her son will be raised only by men as per tradition. Odo steps up to challenge the marriage and weds Lwaxana so that she can raise her new son herself. It's a classic Star Trek story about alien marriage traditions that raised questions about archaic gender roles.
9 Star Trek: Enterprise - "Home"
Before Spock and Chapel, there was Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) and Sub Commander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) in Star Trek: Enterprise. In "Home", Tucker attends the wedding of T'Pol and her intended, Koss (Michael Reilly Burke), despite his love for her. Tucker's selflessness, ing T'Pol even though it's difficult to see her marry someone else, was enough to convince T'Pol's mother that Trip was truly in love with her daughter. Enterprise's wedding-centric episode could have given Trip and T'Pol's romance a happy ending, with Trip objecting to the marriage and them living happily ever after. Instead, it added further depth and narrative complications to the relationship.
8 Star Trek: DS9 - "The House of Quark"
Only Quark (Armin Shimerman) could find himself roped into a Klingon marriage scam, thanks to his big mouth. When a Klingon Warrior died at Quark's Bar, the Ferengi bartender took credit for the slaying. This backfired when he was kidnapped by his widow Grilka (Mary Kay Adams), who forced Quark to marry her so that she could retain control of her House. "The House of Quark" is a genius Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comedy episode, as it pairs two of the most patriarchal species in the Trek canon - the Ferengi and the Klingons - to make some wry observations about gender inequality.
7 Star Trek: VOY - "Course: Oblivion"
"Course: Oblivion" is one of Star Trek: Voyager's bleakest episodes, partly because it opens so joyously. Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) and Lt. B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) finally marry, officiated by Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) following the same tradition as Kirk and Picard. However, there's a dark twist, when it's revealed that something is very wrong with B'Elanna, who is dying from acute cellular degradation. It's a bleak take on the marriage vow of "til death do us part", as Torres starts dying as they're about to embark on their Holodeck honeymoon. It's later revealed that this isn't the real Voyager crew at all, but their degrading biomimetic duplicates first introduced in the season 4 episode "Demon".
6 Star Trek: SNW - "Charades"
"Charades" basically ends Spock and T'pring's engagement, but it's still a classic Star Trek comedy about marriage rituals. The whole episode plays out like a sitcom, with Spock learning how to mask his newfound Humanity while carrying out a complex Vulcan pre-wedding ritual. For all the Vulcan mind melds and interdimensional aliens, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' wedding comedy is ultimately about the struggle to impress one's in-laws. In that respect, "Charades" continues a great tradition of Star Trek wedding episodes that use sci-fi conventions to explore some very relatable experiences for the viewers at home.
5 Star Trek: TOS - "Balance of Terror"
As the episode that introduced the Romulans to Star Trek, "Balance of Terror" isn't an obvious choice for a wedding episode. However, the Romulan attack on Earth Outpost 4 occurs in the middle of the wedding of Lt. Angela Martine (Barbara Baldavin) and Lt. Robert Tomlinson (Stephen Mines), cutting the ceremony, and their life together, tragically short. "Balance of Terror" is a Star Trek episode that reveals the main challenge facing all of Star Trek's love stories - the life or death stakes involved in being a serving Starfleet officer.
4 Star Trek: DS9 - "Til Death Do Us Part"
Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) finally married Kassidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald) at the height of the Dominion War. However, in the lead-up to the ceremony, he is plagued with visions from the Prophets that warn of a great sadness brought about by his marriage to Kassidy. Ultimately, Sisko ignores the warnings of the Prophets and marries Kassidy anyway. Ultimately, it's a beautiful metaphor for marriage, because in all marriages ultimately both parties know that they will eventually be parted by death. As a widower, Sisko is already aware of this and realizes that life with Kassidy will be worth the pain of eventually losing her in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's finale.
3 Star Trek: TOS - "Amok Time"
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' T'Pring episodes have been building to the classic TOS episode "Amok Time", which reveals the brutality of Vulcan wedding rituals. Returning to Vulcan to marry T'Pring or die, Spock's wedding is challenged by the bride-to-be, who chose Kirk as her champion. Kirk and Spock fight to the death as part of this Vulcan wedding ritual, which feels strangely barbaric for the emotionless species. It's a fascinating episode that sheds light on just why the Vulcans can be intensely private about their customs and traditions when it comes to marriage and procreation.
2 Star Trek: TNG - "Data's Day"
The wedding of Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) to Keiko Ishikawa (Rosalind Chao) provided a chance for Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) to observe Human marriage traditions. Viewing a traditional Human marriage from the perspective of an android is a great Star Trek twist, which allows for some genuine comedy. Data inadvertently jeopardizing the wedding to make Keiko "happy" is as funny as it is stressful. Also, Data's dance lessons from Star Trek's dancing Doctor, Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) is another fun sci-fi spin on the anxieties over the traditional wedding dance. The fact that it all culminates in the happy marriage of one of Star Trek's most enduring couples makes "Data's Day" all the better.
1 Star Trek: DS9 - "You Are Cordially Invited"
Lt. Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) and Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) finally married after the Federation retook DS9 in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 6. Ultimately, it ends in tragedy with Jadzia's death in the season 6 finale, but for one beautiful moment amidst the hell of the Dominion War, the crew of DS9 unites to see the couple tie the knot. There's a lot of humor in the episode, from a depiction of a Klingon bachelor party to Dax's clashes with her de-facto mother-in-law, Sirella (Shannon Cochran) of the House of Martok. In covering the joys and stresses of a wedding ceremony, but with a Klingon twist, it's the perfect Star Trek wedding episode.