AshleyW

Hi Ashley!  Beautiful Wedding! I am so debating on having a cruise wedding. What was the location of your reception?

Originally Posted by Arch713 

Ashley-

 

Thank you so much for posting! As you mention, any cruise review is so wonderful and fun to read. I really appreciate you taking the time to post the review.

 

From the pictures, it looks like you had an amazing wedding and it sounds like you totally scored with your photographer. I wonder if I could ever get so lucky with getting such a discounted photo package!

 

Question - did you bring any personalized things for your ceremony/reception? Also, did you plan any events with all of your guests on board to get to know each other?

 

Congratulations on a beautiful wedding! 

Thanks for all the kind words!

As far as personalized things - not very much. We brought a personalized cake topper (just an "F" initial from Michael's), a guestbook, some "in memory" charms for my bouquet, and then our favors - the personalized M&M's. Honestly, with all the luggage I was bringing, I didn't want to try and lug a bunch of crap onto the ship with me that would just get thrown away or I'd have no use for after the wedding. My fiance and I are not religious at all, so we didn't feel the need to bring anything related to that for the ceremony.  The only thing I'll add is that if you bring anything personalized that you want to keep, make sure you keep an eye on it! I had these really great "in memory" charms made by someone on Etsy for me - two little 1"x1" tiles that had a picture of me and each of my grandpa's that passed away on it, and they had ribbon attached that tied onto my bouquet. Somewhere between the reception and pictures, I set my bouquet down and it apparently got thrown away with the rest of the stuff from the reception. I didn't realize it until later that evening, so I was pretty much out of luck.    Anyway, the second reason we didn't bring much personalized stuff is because you don't know the location of your ceremony & reception until about two weeks before the wedding. So we didn't want to bring a lot of color-specific things and have them clash with the room we were given.   Carnival did a wonderful job as far as decorating, so there really wasn't much of a need to bring anything in the long run.

As far as guests getting to know each other - we had 30 people sailing with us, and it was mostly family, so our guests (luckily) sort of knew each other already, or at least knew of each other. The night before the cruise, we hosted a "meet & greet" dinner at a local Columbian restaurant in Tampa, so everyone got to visit and socialize there.  While on the cruise, we didn't really plan anything, but we were pleasantly surprised at how much everyone interacted on their own. A lot of people wound up eating dinner together, or going to comedy shows together, things like that. Surprisingly everyone got along, and there was no drama.

Hi ladies!! Well, I've been back about 3 months now, and a very kind person sent me a PM reminding me to post about my wedding, so I figured it's better late than never.    I know there's not a lot (barely any!) of information out there about cruise weddings, so I'll try to include as much as I remember. If I leave anything out or you have questions, PLEASE ASK! I'm definitely not shy about wedding stuff so I'll answer just about anything.

First things first: Zac & I got married on May 5th on the Carnival Paradise while in port in Tampa. It was a 5 day cruise sailing from Tampa to Grand Cayman to Cozumel, and finally back to Tampa. We decided on a cruise wedding because at this point, we've been together about 10.5 years (high school sweethearts), own a house together, and were basically already married - just not officially. So we wanted something non-traditional but affordable, and something where we knew it would just be close family and friends that attended. We just aren't a real showy/outgoing couple, so we wanted it to be fairly intimate. So, some quick reviews:

The Wedding Experience (overall): Really, I had a great experience with TWE. I've heard some bad things about lack of communication and information, but honestly, I always got all my questions answered and they always went out of their way to do things how I wanted.  I dealt primarily with Raven, as well as Denise for my marriage license. The only real issue we had was that we had to pay a $50 correction fee on our marriage license - but that was completely our fault for not reading the instructions! FYI: Make sure you print and use black ink. If you use blue ink - no, you can't just make a black/white photocopy and submit that back to them. Trust me.

Flowers: My flowers turned out AMAZING. I went with a custom bouquet through The Wedding Experience, partially because I don't like the standard bouquet (I really don't like roses) and their tropical bouquets are expensive - plus I was nervous about picking that option without seeing it in advance. It would have been $275 for my bouquet, plus $35 for an orchid boutonierre for Zac - and honestly, we're too cheap to pay that much for flowers, haha. So I submitted a quote for a bouquet of: birds of paradise, stargazer lilies, orange lilies, and white and pink orchids.  They quoted me only $175 for my bouquet, $18 for a matching boutonierre, and $60 for a matching orchid/lily cake topper. Here's some pictures of how they turned out:

Food: Oh my gosh, the FOOD! So delicious. We opted for the hot & cold appetizers instead of a full meal - we figured between the wedding and the buffet on the lido deck, no one would go hungry. The table was huge and had a really nice selection - mini sandwiches, tons of fresh fruit, cut up veggies, spring rolls, stuffed mushrooms, a bunch of different canapes, california rolls, empanadas...  definitely something for everyone. We also had a 2 tiered cake (as seen above) and opted for the mixed vanilla & chocolate tiers, both with chocolate filling. It was honestly some of the best cake I've had. Very moist and the chocolate filling was amazing. All of our guests commented on how great the cake was.  Here's some pictures my mom got of all the goodies:

Music/DJ: Overall, the music and DJ were fine. They had pre-picked songs to choose from for the ceremony, and they were all pretty standard. We didn't have any music issues during the ceremony. The only bummer moment I had was during the reception. We originally wanted to use Jack Johnson's "Do You Remember" as our first dance because it fits us perfectly, but decided against it because it's only about 2 minutes long and the songs we had picked out for our daughter/father and son/mother dances were longer - around 4 minutes, so we didn't want it to be strange to have us dance with our parents longer than we danced with each other. Well, our reception was only an hour long, so our coordinator told us during the reception that they were going to cut all our dance songs down to 2 minutes each so we'd have plenty of time for eating, cutting the cake, dancing with our guests, etc. So we would have been perfectly fine with our original song. Kind of disappointing, but not terribly upsetting.  But overall, the DJ was $105, and totally worth it. He played some top 40 songs as well as some reception "classics" like the Cupid Shuffle, and definitely kept everyone moving.

Videographer: We went with the $495 basic video package. The videographer we had for our trip was Vlad, and he was super awesome! He did a great job capturing all the important stuff during the ceremony & reception. The only awkward thing was the interviews - basically they asked us questions (separately) before the wedding and then more questions (together) after the wedding. It was a little weird answering some of the questions, but they fit in really well with the video that Vlad put together. On our first sailing day, he also shot some footage of the ship and us walking around the ship, which was pretty fun.  He put it all together into a really nice video with music and it came in a leather case. We also got to watch it before the cruise was over to make sure there weren't any mistakes or changes to be made, which I thought was nice. He also threw in a couple DVD's of the "highlight" video they make of the entire cruise, which I thought was nice.

Photography: I'll try not to make this section too long, because I could go on forever about how amazing our photographer was. We had Rommel, and he was the head of the photography dept on the Paradise, so I feel like we got pretty lucky. He got some amazing shots and gave us a really great deal. He started off before the wedding taking some shots of Zac and his best man in the ceremony location, and then came to our suite to get some pictures of me, my mom, and maid of honor. He was really great about asking what shots we wanted, and positioning us in flattering poses, and was pretty creative with what he did. He got a ton of great shots during the ceremony & reception, and then afterwards, he did a session with Zac & I in our ceremony & reception locations, and then out on the top deck of the ship. He spent a TON of time with us (like 2 hours after the reception was over) and honestly, he would have spent more with us but we were exhausted and really couldn't stand to do pictures any longer.  When it came time to buy the pictures, there was definitely no pressure whatsoever and he gave us a good deal. He met with us in one of the lounges, and brought along a CD of pictures, slideshow, coffee table book, plus prints of all our pictures. All the "staged" pictures were 8x10 and the candid pictures were 5x7.  He left us alone to look at everything, and honestly, we loved all of them! When he came back, we told him we decided on the Deluxe ($999) package that included 35 8x10's, 25 5x7's, 1 CD, 1 Canvas, and 1 DVD slideshow. We also wanted to purchase the coffee table book, which was quite a bit extra, but it was done SO beautifully. He started to help us pick out what pictures were wanted for our prints, and finally he told us that he wanted to upgrade our package for us at no cost so that we would get all the prints he had. We wound up with the Pinnacle package ($1999) which included 80 8x10's, 45 5x7's, 2 canvases, 2 CD's, and 2 DVD's - but for the Deluxe price.  Anyway, without further ado, here are some of my favorite shots:

Embarkation/Wedding coordinator: Since we had a port wedding, we (and all our guests) got priority embarkation, which was really nice. We had to be there by 10 am, and our whole group went through security and the check-in lines before anyone else. We then got seated in a different section than all the other cruisers. Our wedding coordinator from The Wedding Experience (I can't remember her name & feel terrible - but she was so great!) made sure everyone stayed together and no "extra" people slipped into our group. After we boarded the ship, she showed our guests how to get to the lido deck, and brought the wedding party (minus me, my mom & aunt) to the ceremony location to do a quick walk-through of the wedding. As they were doing the walk-through, I got to go to my suite (along with my mom and aunt) to get ready and dressed. We had just about enough time to get me into my wedding dress, clip my hair pin into place, and freshen up my makeup before Rommel showed up to do some pictures. We did pictures for about 20-25 minutes in my room, and then the coordinator came back to fetch us for the wedding!  During the reception, she made sure everyone had enough food and drinks, and she passed out our wedding favors (personalized M&M's) for us, and made sure that everyone had signed the guestbook. She was so wonderful, and did a million little things that I'm sure no one else would have thought of for us - she even had guest services send a vase to our suite so I could stick my bouquet in there for the duration of the cruise before it got thrown out on the last day.

Overall, we had such a great experience with our cruise wedding, and I'd do it all over again if I had the chance. I was so stressed beforehand about stupid things - condition of the ship, how the food would be, if people would have fun, etc. and I wish I would have just let go. Honestly, everything was pretty much taken care of, and if we needed something, there was always someone willing to help us out. 

I think that's everything, although I'm sure I forgot plenty, so please feel free to ask away with any questions or concerns you have!

-Ashley

Originally Posted by briannettu 

 

I am struggling with how and when to send an announcement/ahr invite without having to send them seperately.  Here's the deal:

 

We are getting married in Playa del Carmen on July 11, 2012.

 

We need to have our AHR by August 4 at the latest.

 

This doesn't really give us time to send an announcement/ahr invite after the wedding (we want everyone to have ample time to plan to come to the party).

 

Some people (like weird family members and people my parents work with) will ONLY get the announcement, not a party invite.

 

In my mind I have a postcard style thing with an announcement on the front and an AHR invite on the back.  For those who aren't invited to the AHR they will only get the front.  Trying to keep it fairly cheap since we are on quite a small budget.

 

I just don't know how to word it if we have to send it out before we get married.  Do you think July 11 is too late to send out an AHR invite for July 28 or August 4?  Most of the people who would be attending are local.  PLEASE HELP!  Thanks!

If you plan on not inviting some people to your reception at home, I would just wait and send their announcement until after you're back. That way you can still use normal post-wedding announcement wording.  Then for those who are invited to the reception, you could mail them earlier and say something like "So and so will be married July 11, 2012 in Playa del Carmen. To help us celebrate when we return, please join us for dinner and dancing on August 4th" .. or something like that, only worded a little better.

So, I plan on doing welcome bags for our guests, but I was also hoping to have some small favors for the reception on the ship, and need some ideas!

Do any of you wonderful Carnival brides know if you can bring your own edible favors? I was thinking of doing the personalized m&m's, but I thought I read somewhere that edible favors have to be provided by Carnival... but now I can't find where I read that.  Go figure!

What else are you ladies doing/have done for favors during the reception? I'd like to not spend TOO much money, and the less cheesy, the better.

Originally Posted by CherylSewell 

 

Hello everyone,

 

This has been the best $30 I've every spent. I'm getting married November 8, 2012 on the Carnival Paradise at Port. We are taking a 4-day cruise to Cozumel and back. Any suggestion, ideas, good to knows, best to avoid????

 

Cheryl

Hi there!! Just wanted to pop in because I haven't seen many other Paradise brides!   Mine will be May 5th at port, and we're doing the 5 day cruise to Cozumel and Grand Cayman.  I don't have much for suggestions yet, but I'll be sure to come back afterwards and let you know how it went.  Have you been working with anyone at TWE? I've been e-mailing back and forth with Raven, and she's been terrific. She's helped me get everything I wanted booked so far, helped me get a custom floral quote for a bouquet I designed, and even recommended a couple hotels in the area for the nights before and after the cruise. Totally awesome!!

Let me know if you have any specific questions... I've mostly got everything done and booked at this point, just waiting for May to come!

Awesome, thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by kks2012 

 

Hello Ladies,

Just wanted to open a thread for those who are having or have had their wedding on the Carnival Sensation. 

 

Question: When you booked your room, what room did you book?

I'm not cruising on the Sensation, but I'm on the Paradise which is essentially the same ship...  we booked a grand suite, so that we would have the balcony, a tub, and the extra room to get ready on the wedding day. I think our exact room number is U90, right in the middle of the ship on the upper deck.  Our parents and some other immediate family members all booked junior suites, and everyone else is in inside cabins, I believe.

Originally Posted by AshleyW334 

 

Hello!

 

I am also getting married on the Carnival Sensation! It actually looks as though we will be on the same cruise! Our wedding is on Sunday, May 6th, 2012!

 

I have had some trouble finding wedding reviews for the Sensation, but the people at Carnival have been great so far!

 

-Ashley

I just had to reply to you... we're like almost twins!   We're both Ashley W and our weddings are so close, haha.. mine is May 5th!!

Originally Posted by AwayDC 

 

I've ordered flowers from Angel's Accents as well. I totally know what you mean about the super cheap FI, lol. My selling point to him was that I'll be selling them after the wedding so this way we can at least make some of our money back on it - while getting the flowers that I wanted. 

 

 

That's a good idea! I didn't even think about selling them afterwards. I guess I'll have to try and make my case again for the fakes ones.  Then I'll just have to worry about getting them on the ship along with all my other junk, argh!

So, fellow cruise brides, what are you all doing for flowers?!  I'm kind of stuck and can't decide how I want to handle them...  if I go through Carnival and get their "tropical" flowers, it'll be $685 for all the bouquets & bouts, etc that I need.  If I do them myself with silk, I got it to around $200 but then I have to deal with getting them to Florida and lugging them all onto the ship.  FI is cheap (and I mean cheap ) and thinks we should just stick with what Carnival includes in the package, which is my bouquet and his bout. Which means nothing for my maid of honor, his best man, or our parents.

Anyway, just wondering what y'all are doing and who all you're getting flowers for.

Originally Posted by sunshine2413 

 

Almost Half Off??? What???? I have been eye balling these babies for a while, I wouldn't mind having them for nights out. Well nordstorms is right around the corner from me, so let me know how you managed half off and I'm there!

 

 

 

Yep!! They only had my size left, so they had them marked way down - $70ish, if I remember right.  If you want them, though, Amazon has them on sale as low at $103 (depending on color/size) right now, plus they're a style that is part of their 25% off promotion. So once you add them to your cart, it takes 25% off the price! Not a bad deal.

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Madden-Womens-Partyy-R-Satin/dp/B0058WXFSY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321554395&sr=8-1

All right, I HAVE to show off my shoes.  They're the Partyy-R pump by Steve Madden. They had my fuschia color on sale at Nordstrom, so I even managed to get them for almost half off. Love them!

Hi ladies!! Another non-Chicago bride here.  

I'm Ashley and I'm getting married May 5, 2012 (cinco de mayo!! ) on a Carnival cruise.  We'll be getting married while in port in Tampa, then we'll be headed to Cozumel and Grand Cayman.   Right now we're getting ready to send out STD's and hopefully will get started on some other projects right after the holidays.

Originally Posted by lovepea 

 

We chose to go with the DJ.  We get married on Dec 3, so I can't tell you how it goes, but we thought that since it was the same price as having the social host to play our ipod as it was to have the DJ, why not?  This way, we don't have to download all the music ourselves and our guests can make requests if they want to.

 

That's what we decided, too! It costs the same, and is less work for us, so pretty much a win/win situation.

Originally Posted by okmyers 

 

I'm getting married at Key West onboard Conquest 1 month after you. I'm doing everything onboard because I felt like the destination weddings were to risky and probably a little more stressful. I booked the pianist because of the location. I surely didn't want my wedding and/or reception in the disco club!!!! The entertainment is first come first serve so I would go ahead and book something just in case there are several other weddings going on.

 

Does anyone know anything about the cake? I'm trying to decide if I want to bring my own cake topper?

I went ahead and booked the DJ - I don't mind having our reception in the cheesy disco. Plus my family likes to dance so I'd rather have the room and music for everyone to have fun.  

As far as the cake - my coordinator said mine would be 2 tiered based on my guests (approx 30) and most likely plain white with some white piping on it. I brought my own cake topper so it would at least be a little personalized.

Originally Posted by kks2012 

 

Ecofrugual, I thought carnival doesn't allow outside professional photographers

That's what I was told as well. I'll have lots of family there taking pictures, so I'm not going to risk bringing along a professional photographer and have something happen.

Originally Posted by tresjolie92 

 

Hello~  I just saw your post and noticed that you are getting married on the same ship as I am just one week prior!!  Except our cruise only makes the one stop in Cozumel, and that's where we'll be holding our wedding at the melia cozumel hotel:-)  I initially wanted to hold the ceremony on the beach in Cozumel and the reception on board, but then we found out that it was a requirement to have the lunch for the guest if you hold the ceremony there, so we figure, what the heck, might as well just do the reception there too!  And then come back on board in the evening and continue the party;-D

 

It's nice that someone is getting married aboard the same ship...

 

Liza

YAY another Paradise bride!! Too funny that our weddings are so close together.  We thought about doing our wedding at one of the port stops, but it absolutely terrifies me that there would be bad weather or something and wouldn't be able to make port.  I've heard some mixed reviews on the Carnival Paradise, too, because it's kind of an older ship, so I'm hoping everything turns out okay. I'm sure most people will be having way too much fun (and drinking way too much!) to notice too much, anyway.

Originally Posted by Ecofrugal 

 

We are still debating between two cruises but we have narrowed them down to RCI cruises!

 

We will be married on one of  RCI's private islands (Coco Cay or Labadee) while in port.  It won't  be anything fancy, just us and a few guests.  We're not even going through the cruiseline or hiring a planner or anything because I can't legally get married in the Caribbean thanks to some very outdated and sexist laws (I'm divorced).  BUT, we'll still have a great time and just make it legal later.

 

Any other RCI brides out there???  We just started planning and even though I've been to several cruise weddings (that's how Cody and I met, actually!) I'm still very overwhelmed by all there is to do!  Are you using a TA or just going through a cruiseline planner?

 

Congratulations!!

My wedding sounds similar to what you're doing... nothing fancy, just some family.   I had no idea there were laws about re-marrying after divorce.. that's crazy!   Anyway, I'm actually going through Carnival instead of RCI - but I agree about how much stuff there is to do! We're going through Carnival for the actual wedding aboard the ship, and then we're using a TA to book the actual cruise and our guests booked through her as well.

Congratulations again, and make sure you look around the forums - there is a TON of information and helpful stuff on here!

Congratulations!! Sounds like everything went great for you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by acireta 

Hi Ashley! Welcome! I'm a cruise bride also - what cruise line are you using?
 

 

Thanks for the welcome! We're actually going with Carnival. A bunch of our guests will be first time cruisers, so we wanted to try and keep it as cheap as possible for them.

Originally Posted by acireta 

Hi Ashley,

 

I've heard nothing but good things about the ship photographers! On my last few cruises, all of our pics turned out beautifully (not weddings, just portraits).

 

You'll probably have to stay on top of Carnival constantly with phone calls and emails to get answers. TWE isn't the most responsive company - damn cruise wedding monopoly! LOL

 

Good luck with all your planning!

Good to hear about the photographers, thanks!

That's kind of what I've heard about TWE..  they told me that my wedding planner would contact me within a week of booking our package, and it's been two weeks and I haven't heard anything yet. I'll probably call in a couple days if I haven't heard anything... at this point, it's still pretty far out, so I'm not too concerned.

Originally Posted by BeachBridein11 

 

Welcome Ashley!  How many guest are you expecting?

Thank you!! We're inviting 54, and have gotten a pretty solid 'yes' from about 32 people - I was a little surprised at how many people wanted to come! The group booking deadline is coming up soon though, so we'll see how many people actually pull the trigger.

Originally Posted by merrylee 

 

Welcome Ashley and Happy Planning!  Where are you taking your cruise to?  Will you be getting married at port or on the boat?

Thanks! Our cruise will leave out of Tampa, FL - my parents live there. It'll be 5 days to Grand Cayman and Cozumel.  The actual wedding & reception will be on the boat while it's in Tampa, before everyone else boards the ship. I thought about getting married at one of our ports, but it made me nervous thinking about what would happen if we got bad weather and couldn't get off the ship that day.

Thanks for the warm welcome, ladies!

Wow, great pictures!! You look amazing!

Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing

Beautiful wedding & pictures! I love your invitations, too cute.

Hey ladies! Can I join in with you all? I'm Ashley, and another midwest bride. The fiance & I live in Iowa - we're getting married May 5, 2012 on a cruise!   I've been trying to keep my eye out for stuff for our wedding, but there hasn't been hardly any tropical themed items out in the stores in Iowa in the middle of winter, haha.