2014 Cruise Brides!!

Hey,

Its time to start the 2014 Cruise brides thread! I am recently engaged and have decided on a cruise wedding on the Carnival Liberty. We will be getting married April 1, 2014 on St. Thomas :D. Ceremony and reception will be off ship.

Since everything had to be planned out so early (and quickly) in the past month we have picked ship/sailing date, Booked wedding coordinator (Janelle from Island Bliss Weddings), and booked my first 8 rooms to secure a group booking. Now I am mailing out all my save the dates/cruise info and have found myself in a lull.

Anyone else have that feeling of rush rush rush, and now its the waiting game?

Well, I am a 2014 groom...

We are getting married on April 27, 2014 on the NCL Breakaway while docked in New York City. We love NCL and chose New York for personal reasons. I am a 9/11 survivor and worked on the 74th floor of the south tower on that day. Going back to NY this year and next year is a bit of therapy for me.

At this point, most of our sailing guests are coming from Idaho. I know that a number of the people we invited thought that it was a long ways off since we sent the invitation last fall. We are going to be sending an updated reminder along with the latest cruise deals over the next couple of weeks.

Here is the link to our online invitation. http://robertralphbreakawayweddingcruise2014.us/ I need to update the links at the end with the latest videos too.

We are sailing on the Breakaway a year ahead so we can check out the ship and the port. It will help us decide on venue and provide our guests with clear information about where to go and what to expect.

congrats on the upcoming wedding! I feel silly sending out the save the dates so early but i know its a big expense and people need a lot of time. Are you sending out a formal invite or just the reminders you mentioned?

Hope your trips to NYC give you closure/therapy for what happened on that horrible day. on a lighter note, enjoy your pre-wedding cruise!!!

The website was the invite/save the date. We have 6 rooms booked so far (in addition to ours). I know of a few more that have just not booked yet. Our non-sailing list is also growing. We set the deadline to RSVP much earlier than NCL required so that we could be sure to give people time to make payments. We should be able to fully confirm our guests by the actual deadline.

Hey,

 

Its time to start the 2014 Cruise brides thread! I am recently engaged and have decided on a cruise wedding on the Carnival Liberty. We will be getting married April 1, 2014 on St. Thomas :D. Ceremony and reception will be off ship.

 

Since everything had to be planned out so early (and quickly) in the past month we have picked ship/sailing date, Booked wedding coordinator (Janelle from Island Bliss Weddings), and booked my first 8 rooms to secure a group booking. Now I am mailing out all my save the dates/cruise info and have found myself in a lull.

 

Anyone else have that feeling of rush rush rush, and now its the waiting game?

Hello! April 6th, 2014 Carnival Breeze bride in the house! I just decided what save the dates to send, but they aren't going out until April 2013. I finished our wedding website and gave access to a few VIPs ahead of time. I'm trying to be prepared and I feel like time will fly by considering all of the other things we have going on in our lives right now :)

Next up will be an engagement photo shoot at a local beach by a friend of ours. We will use the pics for the save the dates. My workout routine needs to kick into high gear, too. I'm also trying to figure out the makeup situation in Miami.

Congrats 2014 brides and grooms!

Congrats to everyone. We're booked on Carnival Freedom for January 20th 2014. Getting married in key west thru weddings to go key west and then having reception back on board. We've verbally told everyone Bout cruise and a few family members have booked. We'll be sending out save the dates in may and then final invites in October. We hope to have our final guest list by November. But yeah now that everything is booked it feels like now we hurry up and wait.

We are certainly looking at a either a cruise wedding or honeymoon depending on cost, still waiting on Celebrity cruises to tell us about their Med sailings in 2014! :)

Congratulations to all the confirmed cruise brides and grooms! :)

Hello! April 6th, 2014 Carnival Breeze bride in the house! I just decided what save the dates to send, but they aren't going out until April 2013. I finished our wedding website and gave access to a few VIPs ahead of time. I'm trying to be prepared and I feel like time will fly by considering all of the other things we have going on in our lives right now :)

 

Next up will be an engagement photo shoot at a local beach by a friend of ours. We will use the pics for the save the dates. My workout routine needs to kick into high gear, too. I'm also trying to figure out the makeup situation in Miami.

 

Congrats 2014 brides and grooms!

Congrats! I will be leaving Miami a married woman the day you get married! I am not looking forward to ramping up my workouts but a girls gotta do it!

We will be getting married on the Celebrity Reflection next February, which seems like a million years away, but I'm sure it will go quickly. There certainly aren't many Celebrity brides on here

We are getting married January 14 2014 in Key West. We are sailing out of Miami aboard the Carnival Ecstasy January 13. We are using EZ Weddings in Paradise, and I am putting the deposit down this week. I cannot wait! My mom and I have made my bouquet and I am working on invitations as we speak. My invitations are messages in a bottle, that I am making myself. Won't find a dress until June, and I have plenty of little projects to work on for the rest of the year to keep myself busy...hopefully.;) Hopefully I've attached a pic of the bouquet. Anyone else have any ideas or projects they are working on? I'd love to see!

Are you actually getting married on the ship?

We are certainly considering one of the Celebrity ships for April 2014 and have looked at the Reflection esp as she sails out of Miami which is a city I love! :)

We will be getting married on the Celebrity Reflection next February, which seems like a million years away, but I'm sure it will go quickly. There certainly aren't many Celebrity brides on here

Are you actually getting married on the ship?

We are certainly considering one of the Celebrity ships for April 2014 and have looked at the Reflection esp as she sails out of Miami which is a city I love! :)

Yes, we are getting married on the ship, while at sea, with about 50 sailing guests. I love all of the Solstice class ships, and we wanted to try the newest one out

Congrats! I will be leaving Miami a married woman the day you get married! I am not looking forward to ramping up my workouts but a girls gotta do it!

Yes, we do! I am ready to leave now! So excited.

Been working on a few more pieces of our wedding. Upgraded the rooms for us and our Best Man/Best Diva, reserved the Tribeca Grill (Robert DeNiro's restaurant) for the pre-cruise dinner with family and friends, and firmed up the timeline for the day of the wedding. We are currently updating the website and hope to have that re-published this weekend. It will include pictures from this weeks float out of the ship.

Since we are sailing on the NCL Breakaway a year ahead of the wedding, we will document the layout of the ship to include in the welcome letters. We are also going to plan a time with one of the bartenders to create a couple of signature drinks for the reception.

We are considering shirts/sailor hats for the White Hot Party that will be included in the gift bags.

Enough rambling for now...

Since we are sailing on the NCL Breakaway a year ahead of the wedding, we will document the layout of the ship to include in the welcome letters. We are also going to plan a time with one of the bartenders to create a couple of signature drinks for the reception.

Im not sure if NLC does this but carnival gives out little ship maps on the first day or so of the cruise. They are usually by guest services for carnival. would be a good thing to give out.

We will be getting married April 1, 2014 on St. Thomas :D. Ceremony and reception will be off ship.

Hi there, so excited to see this thread! Myself and my fiancé are recently engaged and just starting to plan for a 2014 wedding! We are looking to do something similar to you OP, as in get married off ship using an independent wedding planner. The wedding packages offered by the cruise liners seem like a whole lot of money for very little! However I am so afraid that the ship's itinerary will change at the last minute and we will miss our own wedding, and this is putting me off booking anything. :confused: Has this happened to anyone or am I worrying over nothing? Thanks in advance for any advice! :o

Hi there, so excited to see this thread! Myself and my fiancé are recently engaged and just starting to plan for a 2014 wedding! We are looking to do something similar to you OP, as in get married off ship using an independent wedding planner. The wedding packages offered by the cruise liners seem like a whole lot of money for very little! However I am so afraid that the ship's itinerary will change at the last minute and we will miss our own wedding, and this is putting me off booking anything. :confused: Has this happened to anyone or am I worrying over nothing? Thanks in advance for any advice! :o

Yes this has happened before and will happen again. St Thomas is an island which the ship docks at, so this helps as the ships will skip a tender port easier then a regular port. My wedding planner has been doing weddings on st Thomas for eight years, she says with over 300 weddings a year the ship has only skipped port 5 times. She also told me that if the ship was to skip port they will try and refund all money, what usually doesn't get refunded is cake and flower costs.

To me it's a risk I am willing to take to have a dream wedding. Then again I'm very easy going and know that if I was to miss the port I'm fine with gathering a group of friends and having my father Wed us on a deck of the ship (he is a boat capt :))

I can understand where you're coming from, but I was really excited to send out our STD's. Actually telling everyone all of the final details made everything feel so much more official. I also had a blast putting them together. I used one of Wedding Paper Divas' Save the Date templates: http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/shop/save-the-date-cards.htm to make them. We went with magnets which I thought was really fun, and used our engagement photos of us on the beach to match the theme.

Yes this has happened before and will happen again. St Thomas is an island which the ship docks at, so this helps as the ships will skip a tender port easier then a regular port. My wedding planner has been doing weddings on st Thomas for eight years, she says with over 300 weddings a year the ship has only skipped port 5 times. She also told me that if the ship was to skip port they will try and refund all money, what usually doesn't get refunded is cake and flower costs.

 

To me it's a risk I am willing to take to have a dream wedding. Then again I'm very easy going and know that if I was to miss the port I'm fine with gathering a group of friends and having my father Wed us on a deck of the ship (he is a boat capt :))

Thank you so much for the reply Bo59rt, that has really put my mind at ease about the whole thing and I feel so excited now about planning it all! That's great advice to choose a port where the ship docks, I wouldn't have thought of that, must look into St. Thomas! How cool that your dad's a captain :cool:

Thank you so much for the reply Bo59rt, that has really put my mind at ease about the whole thing and I feel so excited now about planning it all! That's great advice to choose a port where the ship docks, I wouldn't have thought of that, must look into St. Thomas! How cool that your dad's a captain :cool:

I'm glad it helped, you just have to come to terms that plans can always change. I know that my guests are under the impression the this is a vacation with a wedding for excursion. If we were to skip a port the only people that would be a little bummed would be my fiance and myself. But I have a feeling my father will wear his USCG dress blues for whatever happens, it will just be funny seeing him walk around a deck with them on, gives a little humor to any situation.

After months of viewing this board, I'm so happy to finally be able to say that I am going to be a cruise bride! We are sailing the Carnival Victory and will be having the ceremony and reception in Cozumel on April 26, 2014. We just booked this week with Stephanie & Lluvia at Cozumel Wedding Planner!

We originally thought of an embarkation day ceremony, but were worried about far exceeding the non-sailing guest limit since we live so close to several ports. We decided an island wedding would be much easier to plan since many of our friends and family are very familiar with cruising. I'll let you know how that goes! LOL!

I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you and hearing how your planning is going over the next year! :)

After months of viewing this board, I'm so happy to finally be able to say that I am going to be a cruise bride! We are sailing the Carnival Victory and will be having the ceremony and reception in Cozumel on April 26, 2014. We just booked this week with Stephanie & Lluvia at Cozumel Wedding Planner!

 

We originally thought of an embarkation day ceremony, but were worried about far exceeding the non-sailing guest limit since we live so close to several ports. We decided an island wedding would be much easier to plan since many of our friends and family are very familiar with cruising. I'll let you know how that goes! LOL!

 

I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you and hearing how your planning is going over the next year! :)

Congrates!

We originally thought of an embarkation day ceremony, but were worried about far exceeding the non-sailing guest limit since we live so close to several ports. We decided an island wedding would be much easier to plan since many of our friends and family are very familiar with cruising. I'll let you know how that goes! LOL!

 

I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you and hearing how your planning is going over the next year! :)

Congrats!!! Planning an off-ship wedding is an interesting experience!

You are so lucky that your family and friends are experienced in cruises. I have less than 10 people out of the 100ish invited that have been on a cruise. My wedding website is mostly what to expect and FYI things for everyone, with a little dash of where/what the wedding is going to be.

I have had some crazy questions from non cruisers who are booking... my favorite so far is "whats the difference between an interior and a balcony? does the balcony not have an interor to the room?" my response was.... it has no bathroom :eek::eek: haha i was dumbfounded by that one :)

Let me just say Carnival is not making this a good time for me to be booking cruises for first time cruisers.

Hi everybody.

New user here from the UK.

My son & his girlfriend have announced they will marry circa November 2014.

They are looking at venues abroad etc but would consider off/on ship wedding.

Probably Caribbean area....anyone with advice as to best option regarding cruise/flight coordination...off ship or on ?...is only likely to be small party of about 10 onboard guests & the bride & groom.

Being selfish I would prefer the cruise option as against some of the 'holiday' venues they are considering

Many thanks

JJ

Congrats!!! Planning an off-ship wedding is an interesting experience!

 

You are so lucky that your family and friends are experienced in cruises. I have less than 10 people out of the 100ish invited that have been on a cruise. My wedding website is mostly what to expect and FYI things for everyone, with a little dash of where/what the wedding is going to be.

 

I have had some crazy questions from non cruisers who are booking... my favorite so far is "whats the difference between an interior and a balcony? does the balcony not have an interor to the room?" my response was.... it has no bathroom :eek::eek: haha i was dumbfounded by that one :)

 

Let me just say Carnival is not making this a good time for me to be booking cruises for first time cruisers.

That cruising question is hilarious! I tried to predict as many questions from our guests as possible on our website, too.

It's great to see so many other 2014 brides!

We are taking engagement photos for save the dates next month. Now that my bronchitis is gone, I can start exercising like a crazy woman :) I'm kind of anxious to see how many people will REALLY travel for the trip.