Cruise & Key West wedding help please!:)

[MelB1031]

Happy New Year everyone! So, I'm a total newbie here but I love this site after only a couple days! I'm looking for a little help while planning our wedding...isn't everyone here though?! We have decided to sail aboard the Carnival Freedom and have our wedding while in Key West. We are both SO excited but pretty overwhelmed! I had originally decided, to try to keep things simple, to just do everything through the cruise line. But the more I browse around here, I see some people opted for an outside company for their wedding. I'd love to know what experiences anyone has had with either planning through Carnival or another coordinator for their Key West/cruise wedding! Thank you!

[starchild]

Hi Mel, welcome to BDW!  For cruise specific info check this out:

 

Cruise Weddings

 

Here are some links and tips that might make your time here on BDW more enjoyable.

 

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• complete your profile (upload a photo, add profile details, etc.)
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• find the forum for your wedding destination and create a subscription to threads/members/vendors that you are interested in

 

 

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[cherbear722]

Hi Mel!

I am also getting married in Key West on a Carnival cruise! I booked my reception aboard the ship, but due to the number of guests that I am having, I could not use carnival to book my ceremony. I am working with Amanda from AsUWishWeddings. She is amazing! Everytime I speak with her, I feel so much less stressed! She is so so so so much easier to work with than the people from Carnival's wedding department!!! I wish I could book the reception with her as well, but due to the short time on Key West it just isn't an option. Good luck with everything!!! Let me know how your planning goes! I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do about a photographer!

Cher

[bae0879]

Hi Ladies.

 

I am getting married in Key West also, while on the Carnival Breeze, 05/06/13.  We are having the ceremony on the beach and not doing a reception through Carnival. Mainly because we are going to have a party back home for all that can't attend the cruise. I have been looking at weddingstogokeywest and ezweddingsinparadise for wedding packages/planners. Good luck with your planning too!
 

[jme260]

BAE0879. - I am getting married on the Carnival Breeze at Key West May 6th as well! soo excited! Were getting married at a hotel off the port then having a reception back on the boat.. I wonder how many brides there will be

[bae0879]

jme260, That is great!  We are not having a reception on the boat. We will be having the ceremony on a beach in Key West, then just partying in town, then continuing on the ship, lol. We will have our reception back home in June or July. Congrats to you! How many people do you have sailing with you? What hotel are you having the ceremony at, the one through Carnival's wedding package?
 

[jazzysis]

Hello.  We were on the Carnival Imagination and we had are wedding at Higgs Beach through Key West weddings to go. Then had the reception back onboard.  There were 42 sailing with us.

[2bmrstremblay]

Wow sounds like fun ladies. We are doing an embarkation day wedding out of Galveston on the Carnival Magic. We will probably only have 20 sailling guests max so I am also looking to rent out another space later in the week for another reception type event!

[gwynemark]

Hey Cher, make sure you ask Amanda about your wedding ceremony location photography rules. I had just posted on another thread about this problem but so many of these stops take advantage of their customers. They require them to use their venue photographers and they are NOT any good and even if you bring your own photographer, they take all the available time away and your photographer never gets a chance to photograph you after the ceremony.  If you tell them you are bringing your own photographer they are more than accomodating. However, what they dont tell you is that they still give you a resort photographer for free. This is where they steal all the time from your paid photographer. LOL  tricky people.  Just ask a lot of questions. We have had 2 clients in the past who hired us to go and be their photographers, get shafted. Fortunately we were on the cruise with them and we were able to get amazing shots on other stops.

 

best of luck,

Gwyne and Mark
 

[Southern Photos]

If you have a chance take a look at Southernmost Photography in Key West you can visit there Web-site at http://keywestweddingphotography.com/

 

Daniel