Now we're going alone

Initially we were going to take our wedding/honeymoon cruise with my fiance's nephew and his wife (who were both friends of mine before we hooked up). Well....she called me tonight and said that they are cancelling and not going! :eek: :mad: :( To be honest, I got the impression from her that she really didn't want to go, but her husband for sure did. My fiance is his supervisor at work and it's all they ever talk about even at work.

Well, now we are going to have to have our marriage witnessed by strangers. No one else in our family or any of our friends want to or can afford to go. I have some issues with this. I know it's not logical, but I feel like our wedding is like a "bad" thing, like no one approves (which isn't the case that I know of!) or we had to elope because our families hate each other (not the case) or that we had to have a shotgun wedding or something like that. I never thought we'd be getting married alone. I guess the most important people will be there (me, him, and God) but still.... I try to make my peace with it by remembering that even though they aren't there physically, his father and my grandparents (who have all passed away) will be there with us. It just seems sort of sad and pathetic that we're having our wedding without anyone to share in our happiness besides people who do not know us from Adam. :(

The only upside, I guess, is that now we can have a nice, private honeymoon alone and not have to worry about ignoring or alienating our "guests".

Does anyone want to take a Southern Caribbean cruise for New Years and be our witnesses? :D

It will be a special, intimate day that the two of you will cherish forever.

Resolve to take lots of pictures to show everyone and enjoy each other!

The same thing happened to me for my destination wedding 15 years ago. No one came. In the end it was nice not to have to stress about making sure everyone was happy. Enjoy your day.

Go to the roll call for your sailing. I bet you will be able to meet a lot of great people who would be happy to spend an hour with you at your ceremony. You have plenty of time to get to know the folks on the roll call.

Thats the trouble with destination weddings, they are pretty costly for the folks not getting married.

I am sure you will have a GREAT ceremony and it will be just what you want. Plus now you can have lots of "private time" without worrying about anyone on the cruise with you!

Aw, we'd love to come with you sweetie! But I think you will really enjoy this trip just as much, if not more, than you would if your friends had come with you. I think "just the bride and groom" ceremonies sound really intimate and beautiful. We have planned to have an hour before our ceremony to ourselves on the beach just so we can have a moment to remember why we are there. You will both have a wonderful time, starting a new year and a new life together!

Hey Lora- if we could come, we would! But don't worry, you will still have an amazing time. I know it's not what you pictured, but it will be beautiful and amazing. You will still love every minute of it, and you'll get to re-live it all when you get home and share your stories and pictures with your families.

Thanks ladies! :) I am starting to feel better about the situation. It was a big shocker last night to say the least. Today I made the calls to cancel their hotel room we were paying for as a gift to them, the river tubing excursion we booked for them, and shot an email off to my coordinator to have her try to remove the costs of their being at the wedding. It cost us extra from her package pricing for them to ride in the limo with us, for their flowers, and for them to be on the island tour and eat lunch with us.

I haven't heard back from Lisa yet, but I'm praying that we can make these changes and get the costs back since we already received a contract and deposited on it. That is almost $200 we spent on them and if they aren't going to be there, I want it back or credited towards our balance. Hopefully this isn't a problem! If it is, my fiance said that he's not above telling them that they owe us $200! :D

I actually told my fiance last night, half jokingly, that I was going to check my roll call to see if anyone would be game. However, 4 people have posted to that roll call who are actually sailing and only 2 of us have been keeping the thread active since March. Maybe closer to the date some more people will hop on, but it's 5 months away so I'm not hopeful. I'm thinking about asking the other poster since he's traveling with 13 family members. Maybe one of them might volunteer! :)

Crap just thought of something else. I have no one other than my fiance to help tie me into my corset back gown. We know we'll see each other before the actual wedding, but I was going to get everything done to myself dressing and beauty wise while he was in our guests' cabin getting dressed. I wanted to give him that "wow" shock factor when we at least met in the hallway.

I guess maybe I'll have to see if a female Carnival employee can help me or a female cabin neighbor.

You'll have a wedding coordinator with not much else to coordinate, by which I mean guests and attendants. Mine spent a good bit of time getting flowers to the right people and seeing that our sailing guests found their cabins and our non-sailing guests found the Lido deck. I bet yours would be willing, indeed thrilled, to help you lace up that corset! She'll want your wedding to be perfect, just as you do. Mine would have done that. Just mention it ahead of time, and she'll be sure to make that a priority. Having a happy and beautiful bride is what her job is all about. :)

Just don't count on finding a female cabin neighbor -- you'll be getting on the ship ahead of everyone else and the next passengers on may not be anywhere near you. :eek: I just got back from my wedding on the Carnival Victory, and it was kind of fun having practically the whole ship to ourselves (us and our guests) for about 15 minutes. My wedding coordinator would have been happy to lace up my dress, though, so that's probably your best bet.

Also, my Mom at first said she wouldn't be cruising with us, which made me very sad. However, she changed her mind a month later when she'd talked things over with my brothers and her doctor. She has really bad knees and was afraid of all the walking. Well, she decided to come after all, got one knee replaced in February, and this past week had the time of her life on the cruise. In other words, it's still possible you will have guests if you want them. Just keep your smile as you plan for your big day!

He Lori!

Marshall and I are sailing solo but will have 2 friends (non sailing) witness our wedding! Since we will be arriving the night before the cruise! My dear darling fiance we be helping the morning of get me into my over the shoulder boulder holder aka (bra-zilla)! The dress, veil ......etc will be a surprise! We have attended other formals together so he knows what to do! You may want to practice that part in advance if yours is tricky! WE really wanted to take our kids but the cost was way to high so instead we booked one for next year and included them! When we return I will be putting together my own wedding review video so everyone can see how much fun we had!

Lora, it will all work out for the best and you will have a perfect wedding. :)

Bra-zilla....LMAO!!! I think I'm going to steal that word!

I do hope that everything goes OK. I'm sure it'll be fine, but it's still a little disappointing. My coordinator is from Barbados (we're doing an on-shore wedding), so they won't let her on the ship to help me. I wish they would though!

Diver, how great that your mom is able to come after all! My future MIL is in her 70's and is a cranky old bat to say the least. She's also a hypochondriac. She refuses to get on a ship because it's most certainly going to sink, you know! ;) She flies often but refuses to cruise. Go figure!

One of the ladies from the spa will certainly help you.... as to having witnesses - ask the roll calls folks and even if there are not that many right now you might find a few might join late on.

Bra-zilla....LMAO!!! I think I'm going to steal that word!

 

I do hope that everything goes OK. I'm sure it'll be fine, but it's still a little disappointing. My coordinator is from Barbados (we're doing an on-shore wedding), so they won't let her on the ship to help me. I wish they would though!

 

Diver, how great that your mom is able to come after all! My future MIL is in her 70's and is a cranky old bat to say the least. She's also a hypochondriac. She refuses to get on a ship because it's most certainly going to sink, you know! ;) She flies often but refuses to cruise. Go figure! Drop me a note----*****

Lora,

I hope everything works out for you. I know it must be disappointing, but maybe it will end up really thrilling, too! Just you & your hubby in paradise...no worrying about making sure your guests are happy, just being totally selfish and having wonderful quiet moments between the two of you.

I hope that you find someone on the ship (a lady from the spa might be a good idea) or else another cruiser from your roll call or likewise to help you get dressed. Even if you don't, your hubby can help you and that might be a really nice intimate moment too.

Good luck and keep us posted.