A 'Tony & Ziva' wedding? Michael Weatherly, Coté de Pablo explain the dress

After two decades of "NCIS" roller-coaster romance, Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva David (Coté de Pablo) finally get a big wedding in "NCIS: Tony & Ziva."

The ceremony, tipped in trailers for the new series, is especially shocking as the power TV couple known as "Tiva" aren't romantically together as Paramount+'s "NCIS" spinoff begins (first three episodes now streaming).

During a rollicking joint interview, Weatherly, 57, says he and co-star de Pablo, 45, still wanted to give Tiva-starved fans a taste of the dreamed-of nuptials. If they had held off, he says, it would be pure "Dracula Surfing."

"Oh, this is good," de Pablo says.

"If there was a 'Dracula Surfing' streaming show, it would take nine episodes before you finally saw Dracula on a surfboard," Weatherly continues. "You'd have to learn how he became a vampire, and if he was a surfer before. And where he got the board.

"With 'Tony & Ziva,' you get the wedding dress right out of the gate."

It’s not just former Mossad agent Ziva in a resplendent wedding gown: DiNozzo also sports a tuxedo in a 19th-century Budapest church in front of 125 guests. However – brace yourself – the wedding quickly falls apart.

"An important part of the show is that there's an unreliable narrator (and) that rug gets pulled out from you," Weatherly says. "Turns out it's not Dracula and he's not surfing. And this wedding isn't on."

Well, not yet. With Tiva, love, passion and vows could spring at any time. That famed couple chemistry that started when the special agents first met in 2005's Season 3 of "NCIS" sizzles again in "Tony & Ziva." De Pablo says she was surprised how quickly the duo found the banter despite being apart on-screen since 2013.

"We hadn't worked together, so there was no guaranteeing that we were going to have the same thing we had back then," de Pablo says. "There was just going to be a reinvention of this couple, and we'd have to explain where these characters have been."

What's the history of 'Tony & Ziva'?

It's a complicated history, especially with "NCIS" comings and goings. De Pablo left "NCIS" in 2013: Tony and Ziva had their long-awaited first kiss on her final episode. Weatherly exited in 2016 to headline the CBS legal series "Bull." That left written-out DiNozzo raising the couple's daughter, Tali, in Paris after Ziva's apparent death.

De Pablo returned in Season 17 for a four-episode arc that revealed Ziva was still alive. That chapter ended in January 2020, with Ziva departing for an off-screen reunion with Tony and Tali in Paris − a brief TV family happy ending. But fans always wanted more Tiva.

When "Bull" ended after six seasons in 2022, there was a louder "NCIS" universe cry for Tony and Ziva to return – answered with the announcement of a new Paramount+ series in February 2024.

"We've manifested this for years − the fans did the work and destiny played a part," de Pablo says. "And here we are."

The bad news is Tiva's happy ending is in peril when Tony's Parisian private security company is attacked. The committed co-parents take off on multi-city European flight (Budapest, the Canary Islands, Paris). Tali (British actress Isla Gie), now 12, is looked after by her SAS-trained nanny played by British actress Lara Rossi, part of an international cast that includes Maximilian Osinski (Zava in "Ted Lasso") as a brilliant hacker.

The series features frequent flashbacks to earlier Paris days when Tony and Ziva were very steamily together, while exploring the reasons the trauma-filled "NCIS" relationship came apart. The series then returns to the unfolding Budapest wedding that eventually unravels into espionage-fueled chaos. All filmed over one of Europe's hottest summers.

"It was a sweaty dress, in very warm weather, that I had to run and fight with," de Pablo says. "By the end, I wanted to throw that dress off some balcony. That dress went through everything."

That includes hand-to-hand combat. The wedding dress features removable sleeves so Ziva can punch. That required training.

"Fighting when you age gets more complex," de Pablo says. "But her daughter's safety brings out the Mama Lion in Ziva, so there's a viciousness in the technique."

Will Tony and Ziva get married?

Though this wedding doesn't have the Tiva vows, the TV couple seem destined to stand at the altar. This season? Next season? (Paramount Global has not yet renewed the series.) Weatherly has a theory about the couple's enchanted destiny.

"The whole world of 'Tony & Ziva' is a fairy tale with star-crossed lovers," Weatherly says. "And these bad guys are like an ogre in the forest. But we all know how we want our fairy tales to end."

De Pablo says it's the ultimate goal of the new series to provide that storybook conclusion for the playfully bickering couple. "We said if we ever have the great, big opportunity to go back with these characters, we'd love to give them a beautiful ending," she says.

"Yes, that's true," Weatherly says. "But you definitely said that if that happens, you'd play the scene like Rapunzel."

Says de Pablo: "I most definitely did not."