Bridal Cave: Married Underground
Near Lake Of The Ozarks, Missouri
Beneath a rise called Thunder Mountain, near Camdenton, is a limestone cave that has hosted more weddings than almost any place on earth. It is called Bridal Cave, and the name is no marketing gimmick. It comes from a chapter in a nineteen thirty three collection of Ozark tales, in which the son of one Osage chief kidnaps the daughter of another, and a second couple, truly in love, is married in this very cave.
Whatever the truth of the old legend, the cave opened to the public on the sixteenth of October, nineteen forty eight, and the first real wedding was held here on the first of June, nineteen forty nine. Ever since, couples have come to say their vows in the glow of a chamber called the Bridal Chapel, hung with stalactites like a natural cathedral. The numbers are astonishing.
By recent counts, more than four thousand three hundred weddings have taken place inside Bridal Cave, and the tally keeps climbing. The temperature underground stays cool and steady all year, the formations glitter under the lights, and generations of Missouri families now have grandparents who were married beneath the ground. Few caves in the world can claim so many vows spoken in the dark.
