Due to the lack of any legally binding terms, the commitment ceremony in which Anna Nicole Smith and her longtime lawyer, Howard K. Stern, exchanged vows still doesn’t mean the couple are married. With Smith’s son yet to be buried, it seems this ceremonial declaration of love may simply be part of Anna’s grieving process–strangely fitting for a situation that already seems fraught with tragedy, confusion and odd behavior. According to the New York Daily News:

The couple “exchanged vows before God,” while their posh rented boat was anchored off Blackbeard’s Cay in Nassau, but they didn’t obtain a marriage license, Smith’s Bahamian lawyer, Michael Scott, told The Associated Press. “It was not a formal, legal arrangement,” Scott said. Speedboats carried Dom Perignon Champagne and other party supplies out to the catamaran, according to Star magazine. After the ceremony, the buxom bride, who was clad in a pink bikini, and her partying guests took a swim around the boat, Star reported. Smith’s ex-squeeze Larry Birkhead – who insists he’s the baby’s father – said news of the ceremony didn’t surprise him. “That’s not a grief-stricken mother. He [Stern] wants to take over paternity and that’s his maneuver,” Birkhead told Star. “Nothing shocks me now. It gets crazier and crazier.”

To which I’d like to tell Larry Birkhead, yeah, shit’s pretty crazy. But let’s not act like you’re not part of it.

Written by Lisa Timmons