Durham Wedding Review - Carnival Magic 9.2.12 - Preamble

[kboatman]

Your review is excellent! I am getting married on the Magic this December and am also using Colton for my bridals in November. I can't wait to see more of your pictures!

[Shatima]

OMGGGGGGGGGGG I loved everything.. Congrats to u and ur Hubby.. I also want to really THANK YOU for taking time out to help others by typing a NICE long review and pix.. U help me with a couple of ideas..

[WDrake_98]

Sorry for the delay ya'll....needed a relaxing weekend.

Stateroom Surpise

Now where was I....right. I'm in my stateroom now. To my surprise a wedding guest actually went to the Carnival Registry I setup and had our state room decorated. It was very cute and I was all in teary eyed yet again. Sue (from TWE) and her trainee was with me as I entered my stateroom. My clique (Tanya and Edrina) was also with me, as all my bridesmaids were in my brother's room next door. The groom and his men all got dressed in our other sailing guests room on the 9th floor.

Sue and Tanya left shortly after getting in the room to get me something to eat. Shortly after being in the room I got a call from Federico from audio/video saying he would be coming up shortly to do my initial interview. I got settled into the room, waiting on the rest of the wedding party to make it to the staterooms with our dresses. My planner eventually arrived with my dress, which Colton took along with my shoes up to the top deck to take photos. Once all our stuff got to the staterooms, I began to get dressed. It took both Tanya and Edrina to help me get into my dress, as I had a real, metal boned corset and my dress had a corset tie back. I was dressed in no time and helped my bell girl get dressed after I was finished.

After getting dressed, Colton had all of us go to the 11th deck to take photos. He made sure Josh and the groomsmen stayed in their room. Walking to the deck was really fun as it was the first time people saw me and they were all complementing how pretty I looked. I was soo happy and smiling. We took a few pictures on the deck and I headed back to my room, while the bm's went to the Ceremony site for rehearsal.

From about 12:20 ish until 12:50, it was just my clique and I in the room. Frederico came in and did a quick interview. It was ok, kinda awkward since the camera was facing the mirror and I had to talk into the mirror. But in the end it turned out really cute. After the interview my girls and I just had a good time talking and laughing. It was a great time, and I absolutely recommend having 1 or 2 people that will be with you while waiting for the ceremony to start. Eventually Sue came and got us, as it was time to start!!!


We Say I Do

Our stateroom was located on the 7th deck, port side, aft. The ceremony was held in the Conference Center at 1pm. Getting to the location was very easy, as we took the aft elevator down to the 4th deck (promenade), and the Conference Center was just a little way down. While I was walking up, the wedding party was all lining up to enter and I could hear the prelude music playing. Once I got to the area, I saw Pam and asked her if she had my vows. There was a little stress as they did not know where my vows were given all the stuff we had. Nevertheless, Pam was able to figure out where they were and her assistant was able to get them right before it was my turn to enter.

It was really nice watching my bridal party enter the ceremony location. They were happy to see me and I was sooo happy to see them. My uncle walked me down the aisle and at one moment had to focus on not crying. He was very happy to be there.

Our ceremony started with our Pastor, Josh and his bestman walking down the aisle. The seating of the parents followed, and included, Josh's grandmother, his father and then my mother. His grandmother and my mother were escorted by ushers. Then the bridal party (3 bridesmaids, maid of honor, 4 groomsmen, matron of honor) entered. The ring barer and bell girl then entered. The ring barer was all good and ran down the aisle like a champ. My poor bell girl, got stage fright and didn't want to go down the aisle. At the rehearsal Pam warned us this may happened, so we were not shocked or upset at Kyle and were just going to continue on with the ceremony. However, there was one member of the family that didn't know to just let the child alone, and forced her to walk down the aisle. It was not a good thing, because there after Kyle was not in a good mood and got really attached to the other bm's when she finally got to the alter. In her tantrum, she caused one of the bm's to stumble and bump the while column, knocking over the vase that was on top of it.

So now it's my turn, the door open and I walk in, everyone stands up. Something happened at the door and my uncle stopped for some reason. But then we started walking down the aisle. The lights from the video camera was directly in the middle of the aisle. The way the room was lit made it very difficult to see everyone standing at the alter until I was a good ways down the aisle. I couldn't even make out who was who for a few seconds. But eventually I saw my honey...standing there...both his hands in his pockets with tears running down his face. He was soo handsome.

Once at the alter, my uncle gives me away. We have a small prayer, followed by biblical vows, our personal vows, the sand ceremony, our first kiss as husband and wife, and finally we jumped the broom as we walked back down the aisle together.

Cheese!!
Once the ceremony was done, we walked back to the stage and took family pictures. TWE planners were rushing us and then not rushing us....they were a complete mess. It was about 1:25 when the ceremony was over, but Linda wouldn't let our guests leave the ceremony as we took pictures because it wasn't 1:30. UGH! Most left anyway. We took very quick pictures of various family group photos with his family and mine. very quick. Right before leaving the ceremony we were able to get a group photo of the entire wedding party. Bride, Groom, Matron of honor, maid of honor, bestman, 3 Bridesmaids, 4 groomsmen, 2 ushers, Bell girl and ring barer. WOW...16 people. Hadn't even counted that before. After the pictures we all head down to the reception location.

Cocktail hour..... I'm going to try and get a snippet of the wedding ceremony video and post it.

[WDrake_98]

Hello...

Please email me at wdrake_98@yahoo.com for access to view the video.

http://youtu.be/5-TIw3n5pYU

[Shatima]

Originally Posted by WDrake_98

Hello...

Please email me at wdrake_98@yahoo.com for access to view the video.

http://youtu.be/5-TIw3n5pYU

Im gonna email u.. I want to seeeeeeeeeee please... I have to now finish the rest of ur review.. Thank You Thank Thank you..

My email is Allaboutthis04@yahoo.com so u can be on the look out

[WDrake_98]

Reception.

Our bridal party entered the reception in the same other that they entered the ceremony. The reception was held in the vibe disco. I really loved the location as the colors matched my wedding colors very well.

We entered the reception area, and my planner (and assistants) had set it up beautifully. My bridal portrait (18x30) was on the guest book table, along with the wedding wand favors I made. The portrait was supposeeeee to be on a easel, but not sure what happened, as it was leaned against a gift from a guest. I also had a treasure chest card box (even though I didn't get any cards in the box...bummer).

The actual guess book was in the back of the disco, near the bar. This is where they re setup the backdrop photo booth. This time it was shorter and they pulled out the silly props we got for guest to take funny pictures. It turned out awesome! I have some really funny, nice pictures of most of my guests.

We were properly introduced and immediately started our first dance. It was nice, but kind long. I was really to party and have a good time. Kinda weird dancing to a slow song and having everyone just watch ya.

After the dance, we got on the mic and thanked everyone for coming. Then, my maid of honor, matron of honor, and Josh's bestman and father all gave a quick toast.

The Cake...
I had 84 guest rsvp (includes ourselves). With that number, we were able to get a 4 tier cake. I really wanted a 4 tier cake too lol. Anyway, Josh also requested a grooms cake in the shape of a baseball jersey. Carnival accepted the layout we sent and did the cake for an extra 150.

I requested no pipping or any decor on my cake, as I would be bringing a ribbon and a cake topper. Well they still put pipping. ALL over the cake. So much pipping that they could only put my bling ribbon on 2 of the 4 tiers. So from the bottom, it was ribbon, icing, ribbon, icing and the cake topper.

The spikes for my cake topper were also too long, so about 1/2 of an inch of the spikes were visible after the topper was inserted. While I really, really, did NOT like the pipping AT ALL...the cake was still amazing. The grooms cake came out very very nice. In looking back at the pictures, it was almost a perfect match. I wish I had sent them a picture of what I wanted the wedding cake to look like, but I didn't. I thought saying no pipping would have been clear enough.

We had enough cake for 200 people, even though we only had about 60 show up. To give people time to try the different flavors, we decided to cut the cake as soon as possible. So after the dance and the toasts, we went to the cake cutting. Here the cake security is a def com 5. There was someone next to the cake at all times. When we started to cut the cake, the guy was like he would cut it. I was like no, we got it. Colton (the photographer) gave us instructions on the best way to cut the cake so he could get a good shot.. I did exactly as he said, ignoring the cake guy, who was on his toes trying to get the knife back from me. When looking back at the video, I could even see the anxiety in his face about us cutting the cake.

We feed each other the cake...well I mashed Josh's face and ran...lol. It was cute...and funny. We toast with our champagne flutes and then the party music starts.

One of my guests was there in an attempt to smuggle the top tier of cake off the ship. Right...wrong. After the toast, someone asked me a question and I turned around for a split second. When I turned back, the cake guy had already cut slices out of 1/2 of the top tier. DAMN! Oh well.

Let's Party!!

All the major formailities are done, and it's party time. DJ started off a bit slow at first, so I had my brother, who is also a dj, give him some instructions. There after the music was great! I was really ready to dance. I danced quite a bit. Until I started to sweat...then it was time to stop.

From there on, we mingled...and laughed and had a good time.

About 40 minutes later, we do the garter and bouquet toss.

More mingling and taking pictures at the photobooth. Crazy fun.

I gave the final dance to my other uncle. He really enjoyed it, as I could see a huge smile on his face.

By the time we started dancing, it was still 10-15 minutes remaining, but most of the guest had already started to leave. After the dance, everyone officially started to depart. I was hoping people wouldn't leave until 3:15ish, but by then everyone was already gone.

Josh and I and the guests that were cruising with us, all raced up to the top deck to see people leave as they crossed the street back to the parking lot. It was very windy up there, even though the ship was not even moving.

We waited for a bit, as we didn't see anyone initially, but soon we saw a group of our guests leave and could actually see them enough to make out who they were. So the 6 of us started screaming their names as loud as we could in hopes they would hear us and turn around. Sure enough, we were loud enough and they turned around and we waved good bye them with the wedding wands. Those that had the wands waved bye back to us. It was awesome! {tear}.

The waiting and waving cycle continued for about 30 minutes. We all headed back to our rooms, as Josh and I were going to meet back up with Colton for more photos. Well...I get back to the room, and my hair is sticking straight up on my head. With the amount of hair spray that was in it, there was nothing I could do but wash it.

I make an appointment at the salon for an updo and reschedule our photo shoot for the next day.

[Shatima]

Originally Posted by WDrake_98

Reception.

Our bridal party entered the reception in the same other that they entered the ceremony. The reception was held in the vibe disco. I really loved the location as the colors matched my wedding colors very well.

We entered the reception area, and my planner (and assistants) had set it up beautifully. My bridal portrait (18x30) was on the guest book table, along with the wedding wand favors I made. The portrait was supposeeeee to be on a easel, but not sure what happened, as it was leaned against a gift from a guest. I also had a treasure chest card box (even though I didn't get any cards in the box...bummer).

The actual guess book was in the back of the disco, near the bar. This is where they re setup the backdrop photo booth. This time it was shorter and they pulled out the silly props we got for guest to take funny pictures. It turned out awesome! I have some really funny, nice pictures of most of my guests.

We were properly introduced and immediately started our first dance. It was nice, but kind long. I was really to party and have a good time. Kinda weird dancing to a slow song and having everyone just watch ya.

After the dance, we got on the mic and thanked everyone for coming. Then, my maid of honor, matron of honor, and Josh's bestman and father all gave a quick toast.

The Cake...
I had 84 guest rsvp (includes ourselves). With that number, we were able to get a 4 tier cake. I really wanted a 4 tier cake too lol. Anyway, Josh also requested a grooms cake in the shape of a baseball jersey. Carnival accepted the layout we sent and did the cake for an extra 150.

I requested no pipping or any decor on my cake, as I would be bringing a ribbon and a cake topper. Well they still put pipping. ALL over the cake. So much pipping that they could only put my bling ribbon on 2 of the 4 tiers. So from the bottom, it was ribbon, icing, ribbon, icing and the cake topper.

The spikes for my cake topper were also too long, so about 1/2 of an inch of the spikes were visible after the topper was inserted. While I really, really, did NOT like the pipping AT ALL...the cake was still amazing. The grooms cake came out very very nice. In looking back at the pictures, it was almost a perfect match. I wish I had sent them a picture of what I wanted the wedding cake to look like, but I didn't. I thought saying no pipping would have been clear enough.

We had enough cake for 200 people, even though we only had about 60 show up. To give people time to try the different flavors, we decided to cut the cake as soon as possible. So after the dance and the toasts, we went to the cake cutting. Here the cake security is a def com 5. There was someone next to the cake at all times. When we started to cut the cake, the guy was like he would cut it. I was like no, we got it. Colton (the photographer) gave us instructions on the best way to cut the cake so he could get a good shot.. I did exactly as he said, ignoring the cake guy, who was on his toes trying to get the knife back from me. When looking back at the video, I could even see the anxiety in his face about us cutting the cake.

We feed each other the cake...well I mashed Josh's face and ran...lol. It was cute...and funny. We toast with our champagne flutes and then the party music starts.

One of my guests was there in an attempt to smuggle the top tier of cake off the ship. Right...wrong. After the toast, someone asked me a question and I turned around for a split second. When I turned back, the cake guy had already cut slices out of 1/2 of the top tier. DAMN! Oh well.

Let's Party!!

All the major formailities are done, and it's party time. DJ started off a bit slow at first, so I had my brother, who is also a dj, give him some instructions. There after the music was great! I was really ready to dance. I danced quite a bit. Until I started to sweat...then it was time to stop.

From there on, we mingled...and laughed and had a good time.

About 40 minutes later, we do the garter and bouquet toss.

More mingling and taking pictures at the photobooth. Crazy fun.

I gave the final dance to my other uncle. He really enjoyed it, as I could see a huge smile on his face.

By the time we started dancing, it was still 10-15 minutes remaining, but most of the guest had already started to leave. After the dance, everyone officially started to depart. I was hoping people wouldn't leave until 3:15ish, but by then everyone was already gone.

Josh and I and the guests that were cruising with us, all raced up to the top deck to see people leave as they crossed the street back to the parking lot. It was very windy up there, even though the ship was not even moving.

We waited for a bit, as we didn't see anyone initially, but soon we saw a group of our guests leave and could actually see them enough to make out who they were. So the 6 of us started screaming their names as loud as we could in hopes they would hear us and turn around. Sure enough, we were loud enough and they turned around and we waved good bye them with the wedding wands. Those that had the wands waved bye back to us. It was awesome! {tear}.

The waiting and waving cycle continued for about 30 minutes. We all headed back to our rooms, as Josh and I were going to meet back up with Colton for more photos. Well...I get back to the room, and my hair is sticking straight up on my head. With the amount of hair spray that was in it, there was nothing I could do but wash it.

I make an appointment at the salon for an updo and reschedule our photo shoot for the next day.

Did U have pix of the Club (disco).. I want to see the chairs, and tables that the guest sit at.. I hear they are Very small True??? was there enough room

[WDrake_98]

Originally Posted by Shatima

Did U have pix of the Club (disco).. I want to see the chairs, and tables that the guest sit at.. I hear they are Very small True??? was there enough room

I'll be updating the original photos link as I get more and more photos from guests.

The area is very spacious. It has the feel of a lounge. To the right is a long continuous bench like seating. In front of the seating is a small table about every 4 seats.

To the left there are 3 private booths with stool like seats. Each booth seats about 4-6.

In the middle there are 2 large sofas with stools that double as coffee tables.

On the other side of the dance floor are 3 bar height tables.
There are also 4 bar height round tables with poles in the middle of them
In the far back there is another section with curtains that has quite a bit of seating.



Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[jeschwartz82]

i cant wait to see all of your pictures! it sounds like it was wonderful!

[CruisinGirl777]

The wedding video was amazing. Loved the dresses and your makeup was fab. Everything was so beautiful .

[Shatima]

OK Kool. That does help.. I know Breeze will be a lil Different. But this was great.. Cant wait to see the pix

Originally Posted by WDrake_98

I'll be updating the original photos link as I get more and more photos from guests.

The area is very spacious. It has the feel of a lounge. To the right is a long continuous bench like seating. In front of the seating is a small table about every 4 seats.

To the left there are 3 private booths with stool like seats. Each booth seats about 4-6.

In the middle there are 2 large sofas with stools that double as coffee tables.

On the other side of the dance floor are 3 bar height tables.
There are also 4 bar height round tables with poles in the middle of them
In the far back there is another section with curtains that has quite a bit of seating.

OK Kool. That does help.. I know Breeze will be a lil Different. But this was great.. Cant wait to see the pix

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[KirkNC]

Thanks for posting a review!

[rxbxcca]

Originally Posted by WDrake_98

https://picasaweb.google.com/1159703...Mim3-LsyOXH3QE

gorgeous!

[Laury9265]

wow! great review! I cant way for my onboard wedding! you answered all the questions I had for carnival! thanks and congratulations!

[Shatima]

Yeeees to that Cake.. I have Been looking at that same type!!!!!! It was So Beautiful.. Love Your Pix, Thanks for sharing with us

Originally Posted by WDrake_98

Link to preamble photos...
https://plus.google.com/photos/11597...MCE_u-IouHTrAE

I'll update and tag soon...

[Shatima]

You Rock, And you really broke it down.. Thanks A lot. I really can see it...

Originally Posted by WDrake_98

I'll be updating the original photos link as I get more and more photos from guests.

The area is very spacious. It has the feel of a lounge. To the right is a long continuous bench like seating. In front of the seating is a small table about every 4 seats.

To the left there are 3 private booths with stool like seats. Each booth seats about 4-6.

In the middle there are 2 large sofas with stools that double as coffee tables.

On the other side of the dance floor are 3 bar height tables.
There are also 4 bar height round tables with poles in the middle of them
In the far back there is another section with curtains that has quite a bit of seating.



Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2