The story makes for a romantic one but, like many family legends, the reality may be somewhat different.
A couple may not really have met for the first time on the boat. They may never have met on the boat at all. The future husband may have immigrated as a single man and then sent word back home that he had settled and was ready to marry.
Story was my great-great-grandparents met “on the boat,” having been from different villages. They were born in different villages, but there’s more to it than that. The future bride’s family had moved to the small village where the groom was living about ten years before the couple married.
They knew of each other before they ever crossed the pond.
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In the depositions for my great grandfather’s Civil War pension application (and his widows, later) there are letters from a man saying he “knew him since we came over on the boat together”.
That man lived in Bloomington, IL. My family had lived in Cleveland for a few years and I always wondered why they moved to Bloomington. My guess is it was because they knew this man. Interestingly one of the daughters married that man.