“The first thing he said to me is, ‘I’m dead you know,'" Amanda Teague said.
Amanda Teague never imagined her dream wedding would be held on the high seas, with seasick bridesmaids throwing up on her dress, but it was the only way she could legally marry the love of her life.
The 45-year-old from Northern Ireland became the first person in the U.K. and Ireland to legally marry someone posthumously as she wed the 300-year-old ghost of John Robert Teague, an 18th century Haitian pirate.
Many know of the notorious marauder as Captain Jack Sparrow.
"He was probably as we would describe today, more like an adventurer," she explained to InsideEdition.com. "He wanted to explore all the cultures of the world, he wanted to travel the seven seas. Obviously he needed money to do that, so yes, he was a petty thief, and he did commit some crimes. But he wasn’t the typical pirate shall we say.”
Their love story began in 2014, when Amanda said she began to feel his presence around her. She asked him to leave and moved on with her day.
She said it happened a few more times, before she decided to reach out and connect.
“The first thing he said to me is, ‘I’m dead you know,’ and I was like, ‘Yes I know, I get that,'" Amanda told InsideEdition.com. "And so he told me his name was Jack Teague and that he was a pirate in the 1700s. My first reaction was like, 'Yeah, sure you are.'"
Amanda explained she is not a medium, but instead someone who works with spirit energies, witchcraft, deceased loved ones and deities.
She spent the next several weeks testing the spirit and making sure he was really who he presented himself to be. While she has had extensive experience reaching out to those who are a few years dead, Amanda explained it is unlikely for a spirit to linger around after being dead for so long.
It became ritual for them to speak daily and several months later, Amanda found herself developing feelings for Jack’s ghost.
“It was kind of like a situation where you have a crush on somebody you can’t have — be it a celebrity, a friend’s boyfriend or husband," she said. "In January, he said to me, 'Do you think about me like that?' I knew exactly what he meant. I was quite embarrassed, really."
It was Jack who first suggested the two embark on a romantic relationship together, and after much research and talking with her other spiritual friends, Amanda decided to give it a shot.
“We have chemistry, we have that connection, and he’s there for me to give me support when I need it. We communicate on a regular basis so if there’s something I need to talk to him about, he’s there,” she explained. “I have been married before, to a physical man, and to be perfectly honest with you, he did about the same amount around the house as what Jack does."
She explained that Jack is not with her at all times, and as if he has a physical body, Jack is often off visiting with friends or visiting places he liked when he was alive.
"They can choose to be around their loved ones, they can go back and visit the places they frequented,” Amanda said. “He has friends in the spirit world and friends in the physical world too, because I’m not the only person that he has and does communicate with."
Jack has only appeared to her in dreams, in meditation and in astral travel. She explained that Jack wears his hair in dreadlocks and has dark skin since his mother is Haitian. Out of respect for her husband, she uses Disney's portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in portraits around the house as a placeholder for his actual image.
Although ghosts do not sleep, Amanda explained to Jack it was important for her that he goes to bed with her every night. “Now, he’s not always there when I wake up so perhaps he just gets tired of listening to me snoring for eight hours," she joked.
In terms of getting intimate, Amanda said she compares it to feeling a loved one touch her hand or shoulder during a séance — except, the touch is sexual.
“It took two or three months before we perfected it — to actually be able to manage to have a full ... a full consummation, shall we say, of the relationship,” Amanda explained. “In the beginning, I had to really go into a very trance-like state, because I would feel his energy, but then I would get to the point where I would be distracted and [we] would have to start all over again. Obviously we’ve perfected it at this point because we’ve been together in that way for two years now. It’s a lot quicker now."
Eventually, Amanda said she became restless with a relationship that did not seem to progress beyond dating. That’s when she suggested they get married.
"He would have been happy, like most men, to just continue in the relationship the way it was," she laughed. "I was at a point in my life where I felt like I deserved a commitment."
Previously, Amanda was married for six years to her ex-husband, and has five kids.
She began researching what a spiritual wedding would entail, and how she could get her friends and family involved.
Learning that she only needed to submit paperwork to make an overseas marriage legal, Amanda decided to charter a ship that would bring her and her 12 closest friends and family members into international waters.
As for the officiant: “I found somebody straight away who was Pagan and who was also a legal registrar […] he’d never performed a spiritual wedding, but he was quite aware it was a thing. So he said yes.”
Although it was far from Amanda’s dream wedding, filled with turbulent waters and seasick bridesmaids, she said she went on with it, scrapping her over the top romantic vows with the bare minimum to get it done.
"I was a bit of a bridezilla to be honest with you," she joked. "There were people hanging on for dear life, people getting sick everywhere, it was terrible. Just as I was getting the ring put on my finger, one of my bridesmaids vomited all over my dress."
Shortly after, she and Jack had a larger, handfasting ceremony, a practice common in Jack’s era. She even hired another medium who could channel Jack during the ceremony and recite his vows independently on his behalf.
The second ceremony was a success.
“At the end of the day, I wanted to be married to the man I love,” she said.
Amanda and Jack have now been married for two, joy-filled years.
“We’re obviously over the honeymoon period but we’ve got a solid foundation and we have some ups and downs,” Amanda said. “We’ve gotten through some tough times together but he’s been there. He’s supported me and he’s waiting around and letting me get through things on a physical realm.”
And, as if Jack were also present during the interview, Amanda burst into laughter, saying, “He’s all full of himself here now.”
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