Questions on Cruise Wedding

Hello! My fiance and I have been engaged for over a year because we have not been able to figure out how to do our wedding. We know we want our honeymoon on February 27th 10 day NCL Gem but nothing else. I we are debating about booking the wedding on the boat as well but have many questions about the process of how to do that. We have no idea how many people would come to the event whether it's 10 or 50. How can I buy a wedding package without knowing how many people will come? Also, I'm not very impressed by NCLs wedding packages they charge minimum of $3,000 and that only covers the ceremony. I would love if someone could give me a walk through of the process of organizing a cruise wedding as for as when to book the wedding, send the invites/rsvps, help people book the cruise with group rates or arrange the walk ons, whether or not I have other wedding packages options that aren't shown. I am pretty clueless on all this so the more information the better and I appreciate all the help! Thanks!

I wish I could help you out but only familiar with the Carnival packages. Hopefully, someone else on this board can help you that has experience with NCL. I would however talk to someone in their wedding department real soon if you are talking about February 2017.

I too was concerned about the number of guest to anticipate for our wedding which is not until November 2017. We decided to get married while in port to allow those not cruising with us to at least attend the wedding and ceremony if they chose to do so. Turns out we are looking at close to 80 people now. When we booked the wedding we had to pay for our wedding package in full when we booked as well as provide the booking number where we were also booked on the cruise. Our package was for only 20 people but I have until 30 days prior to our wedding to provide the complete list and the money to cover the over 20 guest.

One of the best ideals I seen on this board was to make out a wedding list and prioritize those non-sailing guest since we can only have 50 that are not actually cruising with us. Then mail out RSVP to group A, once you find out from that list who will be attending then you can go to group B and mail those out.

GOOD LUCK!

I wish I could help you out but only familiar with the Carnival packages. Hopefully, someone else on this board can help you that has experience with NCL. I would however talk to someone in their wedding department real soon if you are talking about February 2017.

 

I too was concerned about the number of guest to anticipate for our wedding which is not until November 2017. We decided to get married while in port to allow those not cruising with us to at least attend the wedding and ceremony if they chose to do so. Turns out we are looking at close to 80 people now. When we booked the wedding we had to pay for our wedding package in full when we booked as well as provide the booking number where we were also booked on the cruise. Our package was for only 20 people but I have until 30 days prior to our wedding to provide the complete list and the money to cover the over 20 guest.

 

One of the best ideals I seen on this board was to make out a wedding list and prioritize those non-sailing guest since we can only have 50 that are not actually cruising with us. Then mail out RSVP to group A, once you find out from that list who will be attending then you can go to group B and mail those out.

 

GOOD LUCK!

That helps a lot! Thanks so much for the reply. I am trying to get as much information as possible to help figure things out to see if we can do it for February 2017 and what exactly it entails.

I got married on the 10 day Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Gem in 2012.

My best advice is to ask you if you are a planner or comfortable just trusting leaving everything in someone else's hands....

Basically you contact the 3rd party vendor and they take the generals down and no more contact until 2 weeks prior to your wedding.

That being said things went off without a hitch but I was a nervous wreck the entire time :)

If you have specific questions please ask away!

Hello! My fiance and I have been engaged for over a year because we have not been able to figure out how to do our wedding. We know we want our honeymoon on February 27th 10 day NCL Gem but nothing else. I we are debating about booking the wedding on the boat as well but have many questions about the process of how to do that. We have no idea how many people would come to the event whether it's 10 or 50. How can I buy a wedding package without knowing how many people will come? Also, I'm not very impressed by NCLs wedding packages they charge minimum of $3,000 and that only covers the ceremony. I would love if someone could give me a walk through of the process of organizing a cruise wedding as for as when to book the wedding, send the invites/rsvps, help people book the cruise with group rates or arrange the walk ons, whether or not I have other wedding packages options that aren't shown. I am pretty clueless on all this so the more information the better and I appreciate all the help! Thanks!

Hello there!

I figured I would offer my perspective as someone who is getting married on a Celebrity cruise next Sunday (:eek:). I will outline some of the timing and such that I utilized to help plan the wedding.

1. We booked the cruise itself abut a year and a half before the wedding. It was booked as a family cruise initially, but we wanted to lock in the 1-2-3 promo that was going on (and has now since ended). Our family members who could definitively go on the cruise booked at this time. We booked directly with the groups department. In hindsight, I would have arranged all of this through a travel agent. It got confusing at times and so many emails were sent to me personally, which I thought was a bit much to take on.

2. We sent save the dates about a year in advance. Again, in retrospect, I probably would have skipped these. We only had one additional group book. Everyone knew about the cruise by word of mouth and anyone interested I simply emailed the information. I also set up a wedding website, but most people don't utilize it often, so unless you have tech savvy people, not a requirement.

3. We sent our invitations in April for our August 28th wedding. The RSVP date was made for June 14th, as we had until 45 days before to submit a list. This 45 days for Celebrity was VERY flexible. I sent my list 30 days before. Give yourself more than the 45 days. I had to track a few people down to get their driver's license numbers and birth dates. I sent a separate card for my guests to fill out. It was attached to the RSVP card, but some did not see it (actually, it was impossible to not see, but it was disregarded by some).

4. When we booked the wedding (which was done after our engagement in April of 2014), we paid a deposit. We then were told that we had to pay in full to secure all venues within 30 days. We paid for 70 guests, but were told that we could pay for and adjust those numbers up until 45 days before. It was actually cheaper to pay for 70 people for a buyout than it was for less than 70. I am happy to say that we have exactly 70 guests going. I used Excel to keep track of all of our guests.

5. I purchased our invitations on Etsy. They are boarding passes and are absolutely beautiful. They are very clear about a 10:15 arrival for our embarkation day wedding. We have 14 sailing guests and the rest are nonsailing. Celebrity has been flexible with these numbers. Our venue holds 82, so we had some room to adjust.

6. I also feel like the ceremony was expensive. We are paying about $2,800 for the ceremony alone. We did not add extra flowers or an aisle runner. I do, however, understand the pricing to an extent. They are losing a bar and revenue from that venue for part of the cruise. We have a fabulous coordinator, Tammy, that I had the pleasure of meeting on a ship tour (a very pricey ship tour!) We did have to pay for additional coordinators due to our guest size.

7. In total, we are probably paying about $10,000/$11,000 for everything, including the cruise. I did not keep track of the dress, favors, etc. with a concrete budget. I paid upfront for the reception and ceremony and it is exactly what we want. We did a buyout of QSine, paid for wedding cake for 70 (one of our only extras), and are inviting the exact people we want to see and love. The wedding cake was about $450. We are doing a vanilla cake with raspberry, which was not on the menu. The classic beverage package is included in the buyout price (it was $45 per person for 70 people or more).

8. We paid for an extra hour of photography and also paid for the DJ. We have a price list for the photos and plan on purchasing the CD of photos. The package option seems to be about $1,500.

9. The Wedding Experience experience (for a lack of better words), has been very "spotty." We have been through 4-5 coordinators. It has been frustrating to say the least. I kept every single email. I have a very organized and thorough wedding binder with each document highlighted and filed in a certain section.

10. We have a very small wedding party. My best friend is assigned as "our person" (Grey's Anatomy????) She is going to handle the binder and Ipad (with our music on it). We have all of our "goods" boxed up and she will transport them to the pier. These items then go to the coordinator. We have our bouquets boxed up (the package comes with a bouquet and bout, but we are having the bouquet split in two for our moms at no charge...I made bouquets out of used book pages since we love Harry Potter and I teach English!).

11. I made sailing bags months ago. I will post these in a review. I just decided to make snack bags with sealed snacks for our sailing guests to munch on while waiting in the terminal.

Any other questions, ask away! I consider myself to be very organized, but also mostly relaxed. I don't care much about centerpieces or decor. I am aware that there may be snafus, but I am marrying the person I want to spend the rest of my life with and I am very excited. I apologize for the length, but I am always thorough!