Our Oasis of the Seas wedding Dec 1st - Dec 8th

First off Thank you for all the posts from all the cruise ship brides. Since we are few and far between its nice to have such a great place to talk about the wedding process for our type of wedding. I'm a wedding photographer so I've seen countless weddings and we wanted something more us. We love cruising and we decided to marry that together!! (see what I did there with the marry, lol)

The day was perfect. It was amazing being able to spend a whole week surrounded by friends and family. It really felt like our two families were able to become together as one. They bonded, our moms are friends and our siblings laughed and joked around together. It was something I didn't think about before. So it was nice that it wasn't just one day. We couldn't have imagined spending all that money on just one day.

We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Beautiful Oasis of the Seas. She's giant and remarkably we only lost our groups once on that cruise during the 7 nights. We sailed the western caribbean. We got married at marriotts frenchman's reef which is 30 mins from crown bay. Which feels like a lifetime!!! From the marriott to the courthouse to the hotel took around an hour. Day 2 was very rocky I felt very bad that day and I only ate an apple. Green apples aid in sea sickness. Im still rocking from the cruise actually. I wish we would have done it in May, more sunlight in the sky and less likely to rock. Apparently Nov-Feb can be rocky, I was told that cold water creates ruff seas. Lame.

Flowers:

We used angels accents I got 1 bridal and 3 bridesmaids along with 3 boutonnieres. They turned out nice. It did seem like the website was a bit crazy how it was laid out and the contract was huge. I think It could be slimmed down. I paid for extra large flowers so I had a full bouquet which was a good idea since I though the bride maids (which were bridal) were too small. Im planning on putting them up for sale soon.

Dress:

Martina Liana 359

One of my brides found this dress for me. I wanted a keyhole back but they all were just so heavy. This dress is so amazing. It is two dresses in one. It has the under part whichÚ is a silk satin so its lightweight but it has boning in it to keep me in place and skinny. Then the Chantilly lace dress goes over top of it. It also had a purple-ish sash. I wore a long chapel veil. (so fun) I also plan putting the dress up for sale too.

Bridesmaid Dress :

Nordstroms - adrianna papell

Groom and Groomsmen:

Suit studio - That was a hot mess, The suits didn't fit well at all. We went and got them all sized and it was a waste because they were all baggy. We had too spend $100 per suit to get them resized. The fabric also had a strange plaid pattern. Bad. I wish we just got jcrew suits. The boys wore suspenders and chucks tho so that fixed the problem.

Location:

Marriot's Frenchman's reef. Beautiful location. Gazebo area on a cliff in a garden overlooking the ocean. You walk down stairs and its perfect. That was the best part of the day. The only thing was during the planning process I got transferred so many times to new coordinators. We had to re explain everything. I got the photographers amended in the contract (They didn't allow outside photographers/videographers) So it was annoying re talking about the wedding. I was worried that I needed to spruce up the ceremony sites but the quotes were insane. and it didn't need it. The location was breathtaking. The Marriott has an officiant. His name is Bill Arnet and he was fantastic. I wrote the whole ceremony and he happily read it.

Hair and Make up:

Sugar and spice. They were awesome. very quick very amazing that they were able to add extra hair dressers within a day.

Photographers:

Root Photography, I brought them on the ship with me. It was the best decision ever we even took an extra engagement session on the ship

Videographers:

Imprint Cinema: We also took them on with us. I can't wait to see the video. They really did more than enough they were always there and we hung out a lot on the ship.

Transportation:

We used islander taxi. It really wasn't that good. They were there when we got off the boat but we had to wait around for someone to pick us up. We used two drivers. One for my bridesmaids to go and get ready and hang out at the hotel. We got ready at the hotel. Then My husband (eeek) and I took one car to the courthouse then too the marriot. It took about an hour for us and 30 mins for the wedding party. We were at the crown bay port. The harbor-site port is like 15 mins away, that would have been awesome. On our way back from the resort to the port I paid for an hour and a half of pictures around the island. his tire was flat so we lost all that time. Which really stunk. But we took pictures around the cruise ship instead.

Cocktail hout:

I wanted to do cocktail hour at the solarium deck 16 but it was hott and people were walking around in speedos so as my videographer suggested we moved it into the viking crown lounge. then we had to move it into the pinnacle lounge which was perfect. It was just us. We brought our own bose and played our one first dance song : Jackson waters sail away. I loved it so so much.

Dinner : Specialty restaurant at chops grille

I wish we had one table. It was sad that I had to choose in fact I always had to choose who to sit with. That drove me nuts. Apparently if you go to the Md. on the first day and request a large table they can do it. I should have done that. It drove me insane to walk by the 16 seat table every night in the mdr. Everyone loved dinner in chops. Deck 8!! But seriously they could have squeezed us together. There was also a wedding party of 23 on the other end of the dinning room which is interesting considering the fact that they were so mad about my 13.. But my amazing travel agency helped with that.

Cabin: Crown loft suites 1708 (port side) It was nice because on the 2 sea days we had the sun for laying out if we wanted.

We stayed in the crown loft suites which was the best decision we made. So many people were always in our room and we felt like it really was our honeymoon. Its amazing and it totally spoiled us. We didn't really get to indulge in all the suite perks tho because we were with so many people.

Our timeline:

It turned out awful the night before our wedding we found out that the cruise ship time is one hour ahead of island time. So that really messed everything up. I called from the cruise the transportation and hair and make up and they all were able to make it work. I called multiple times to confirm cruise ship and island time. Royal told me the ship would change. It didn't. Because of daylight savings time. apparently. So I would recommend double checking when you get on board so that while in port in the US you can call them and make any arrangements/changes needed.

Our timeline went like this:

Cruise arrives in port: 9:00 ship time/10:00 island time

Get off ship: 9:15 ship time/10:15 island time

Transport Wedding party to hotel : 9:15 -9:45 ship time/10:15-10:45 island time

Transport Bride and groom to courthouse then too hotel: 9:15 -10:15 ship time /10:15-11:15 island time

Hair and Make up Starts : 10:15 ship time /11:15 island time

Ceremony : 2:00-2:30 island time

Portraits: 1:30 - 4:30 ship time / 2:30 - 5:30 island time

Cocktail hour : 4:30 ship time

Dinner : 5:30 ship time

There really was no great entertainment after our dinner because dinner was so early. Plus everyone was so tired.

I wish I would have done hair and makeup on the ship (got ready in our room, it was large enough)

Then did a first look on the ship. (where you see each other before the ceremony)

We could have done portrait on the ship then in the boardwalk around the central park

Then we could have left at 1:00 to get our marriage license (in our wedding outfits)

Then we could have done our ceremony

Took more pictures after and on the island ( I would have just called a new taxi since that one had a flat tire)

Then we should have moved cocktail hour back to 5:30 or so and dinner at 6:30

Knowing all I know I would love to photograph a wedding on a ship one day. It was the best day ever and we are so happy we did it. I wouldn't have changed anything about that day. Even with all the oops and woops. Remember there's no way on earth it will go as planned. Just go with it. Try your hardest to soak it in and get a good photographer. I can't wait to see the pictures. I will certainly share that when they get here. Good luck ladies!!!!

Congratulations! Thank you so much for your post.

Congrats!!!

Also, that timeline is great! I'm getting married on the ship but will definitley be borrowing that idea.

Thank you for posting pictures. They are beautiful.