We can now confirm the sad news that Cunard will soon no longer be registered in the UK. Soon the name Southampton will also no longer appear on the company’s lifeboats or be emblazoned across the sterns of their cruise ships. An era lasting 171 years has come to an end and within the next few months Queen Victoria, Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth will bear the name of Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda.

Since Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory, the cruise liners will still fly the Red Ensign – which has also been adopted by Bermuda as the territory’s national flag.

The official statement by Cunard, leaked to the Financial Times nearly a month ago, said nothing about all of this. The terse, three-paragraph statement simply told whoever might be interested that Cunard would in future also be able to offer weddings on board its ships.

At the time Peter Shanks, the MD of Cunard, said "Most of our competitors have been developing increasingly popular and lucrative Weddings at Sea programmes, and these are now very big business in the cruise industry."

The big problem seems to have been British law, which does not legally recognise weddings on board ships since these are not ‘publicly accessible’.

Veteran cruise journalist John Honeywell, however, thinks there might be hidden reasons for Cunard’s decision. Being registered in Bermuda will enable the company to escape European and UK wage laws and also pay lower registration fees.

The first weddings at sea on board a Cunard ship will take place in December 2012.