Unexpected guest crashes beach wedding - a giant sea turtle

The turtle had absolutely no interest in the bride, her special day or her guests, though. She has something far more important to worry about - laying her eggs.

The wedding was being held in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. One wedding guest uploaded photos of the surprise visit to Reddit on Monday and described the moment the giant leatherback turtle came out of the waves and onto the beach.

“Immediately after the ceremony during cocktail hour everyone is mingling and sipping on their beverage of choice when I overhear one of my friends say with a good bit of excitement in his voice "look at that turtle!'"

"I break conversation and turn around to see this monster coming out of the surf."

"We watched it for a while. It came ashore, circled around digging a hole, laid it's eggs on the beach, covered them back up, and rolled back out into the ocean.

Now that's a memorable event at your wedding”.

Leatherback turtles are the largest of all the turtle species, with an average length of 2 metres. Females dig a nest above the high water mark on the beach with their flippers and lay about 110 eggs. After laying, they carefully fill in the nest with sand to protect it from predators.

The eggs hatch after about 60 days. The baby turtles then dig their way out of the nest and instinctively make their way to the sea, where they swim away.

Locals in St. Croix told the wedding guests that the rare sighting of a turtle laying her eggs is a very good omen for the marriage, especialy when it comes to fertility.

That's all lovely and everything but did she bring a gift?