Carnival Fantasy Wedding!!

I am getting married on the Carnival Fantasy on November 2, 2011!! Im getting married on the day the ship leaves and im worried that we will be rushed. Anyone who was married on this ship please share your stories. Im getting SOOOO NERVOUS! Pictures would be great as well!!

YEAH!!!! Congratulations!!! I am getting married February 25th on the Fantasy!!! I have read a lot of posts on here and everyone has great things to say :)

I was a Fantasy bride in July of lasy year. I was NOT married on embarkation day, but I was married onboard in Nassau. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I also have TONS of pictures. I see one of you is getting married in Charleston, and I am not sure on the other. If you are getting married in Nassau, let me know, as I have some words of wisdom for anyone getting married via a Bahamian Marriend License. It took me almost a year to get my license issue worked out after the fact, and I would HATE for anyone else to have to go through all of that. Other than the license issue, the wedding was a dream, and I would not change a single thing. So ask away if there is anything you would like to know.

I am getting married in Charleston, SC......and VERY EXCITED!!!!! Did you do the 1 1/2 reception? I would love to see your pics :) Is there any advice you would give about the ceremony and reception? I look forward to hopefully hearing from you. :)

I am getting married in Charleston, SC......and VERY EXCITED!!!!! Did you do the 1 1/2 reception? I would love to see your pics :) Is there any advice you would give about the ceremony and reception? I look forward to hopefully hearing from you. :)

I have the 1 1/2 reception. And I would love to see pics as well:) Hopefully we will get a reply soon!

I must not have been notified of the previous reply, I apologize for my delay, I was only notified of today's post. I do not have a photo bucket account to be able to attach multiple pictures on cruise critic, as I have 100's of wedding pictures. However, ALL of my pictures, from ceremony, reception, around the ship, etc are on my facebook (both professional, and family pics, so you can see the lighting issues on the fantasy, and orange overtones on the photos). If you email me at transplanted2indiana at yahoo dot com, I will give you my facebook information so you can friend me to view the pictures.

As for advice, my wedding was perfect, my ONBOARD coordinator was perfect, and everything about Carnival was perfect, the entire onboard wedding experience was a dream wedding. But...... It was "the Wedding Experience" people that were terrible. It took me almost an entire year after my wedding to get proof of my marriage via my actual wedding certificate. And that was ONLY because I contacted the Bahamian Government and went through all of the channels myself to correct the Wedding Experiences problems. I know neither of you are getting married in the Bahamas, but still my one piece of best advice is if you think something may be wrong, or off a little then please ask, don't just suspect that they know what they are doing because it is their job. From my experience, they have no clue, and one simple mistake could cause the entire wedding to be void. For over 9 months I had to wonder if I was really legally married, and I could not change my name, all because of one piece of paper I knew that I needed but the coordinator never asked for when we went to the courthouse to get the license. I assumed she knew what she was doing and the instruction sheet was wrong. The officient went to pick up the license before he came on the ship, and they would not issue the license due to the missing document. They decided it best to not tell me until after the ceremony, of course by then it was too late, however the Wedding Experience took my document and said they would get it taken care of, but once I was off the ship, I was just a past customer that never really seemed to matter to them. Can you believe after 9 months of jumping through the hoops, and the waitlists and my work of getting the problem resolved, they called me and tried to take credit for it.....

Anyway, sorry to ramble about that issue in which you surely will not go through, and on to rambling about the good!!! Your situation will not be completely similar to mine, as I was not married until the 3rd day, therefore, I had multiple meetings every night at dinner with my onboard coordinator. This was very much needed, as I am very OCD, and I had my entire wedding and reception planned to the fullest extent. I also had lots of non traditional items going on, such as having everyone be part of the ceremony, and children involved in the sand ceremony, they also walked me down the aisle. I did not know it at the time, but because of all the planning I did, and all of the typed instructions I had, my coordinator said afterwards that she was more nervous than I was. Everything went off perfectly, but I am such a planner, I had literally thought of everything. Just keep this very important fact in mind. YOU will NOT be present for ANYTHING until you walk down the aisle. So make absolute sure that someone you TRUST BESIDES THE COORDINATOR knows exactly what you envision. You will not be the one setting up the guest tables, guest books, what songs to play when, or telling people when to walk down the aisle, etc, so have someone there you trust that does know. Again do not rely on The Wedding Experience for this, as their rep that came onboard for my wedding, actually argued with my mother on the order of MY wedding entrances. Of course I did not know this until afterwards either, so another nugget of advice is to have someone that you know be 100% knowledable of your entire plan, pretend like you will not even have a coordinator.

They played all of my ceremony music as stated, without error, right off of my BURNED CD. After the exit, we all came back in for photos, and they continued playing the music. It was very nicely done. I was married in the Forum Lounge, which would not have been my first choice, as it is very ugly and completely decorated in oranges and reds, however, it did not detract from the professional pictures. I was married in front of the red curtain, so you don't even see the rest of the room. The room and the colors did however, detract from EVERY SINGLE family taken photo. I am so thankful that I did not rely on family photos for my wedding pictures, as I would have cried my eyes out after seeing them all tinted orange. So another nugget of advice is double your budget for photos. You will LOVE the professional photos, and you will not be able to use any amateur ones due to the lights on the Fantasy. None of my reception, family taken photos, were of any quality either.

My reception was in the Disco since I hired the DJ. The disco and the DJ were awesome!!! We had entrance music, specific entrance instructions, and introductions which were very professionally and smoothly done, again with my burned CD's. I never personally met with the DJ, only gave a list of instructions, and order of things to my coordinator who handled it with him. I had the 1.5 hour reception and it was plenty of time for everything. We had the grand entrances, first dance, cake cutting, speeches, toasts, mother-son dance, father-daughter dance, and time for countless other songs to be played. I provided the music for the special songs, and 3 other songs to be sprinkled through. He played the rest of the music based on the songs provided. He did a great job of changing it if no one was dancing, or if we asked. He also took requests, as my son made everyone get up and dance to that club line dancing song which the name escapes me right now. It was awesome!! Then at the end, we also did one of those things where everyone lines up in two lines, and one person from each line dances down the middle together, then gets back at the end of the line. You will see what I mean in the pictures. This was a last minute suggestion by one of my friends, and actually was one of the most memorable moments, and created the best pictures. The food was amazing, what I ate of it anyway. I forgot to eat, I was so busy doing everything. They made way tooooo much, and more than what they said they would. I think they included almost everything on the menu that they gave us in the beginning, it also had sushi, and chicken nuggets for the kids. I did seek out the chef during the week though, to find out what he would be serving since you do not get a choice, he was super nice and just said not to worry about a thing, that we would be completely happy, and we were. There was soooo much food left over at the end, I felt so bad. I tried to give it to the workers, but they said they were not allowed, and that all of it would just be thrown out. The ice sculpture was amazing too! We were never left without a drink, and you could order pretty much what you wanted.

When you look at the pictures, I will warn you that I brought on almost everything that you will see, except for the ceremony decorations, and the cake topper. So none of what you see is what is included in the package. I made my own flowers, custom sand ceremony stuff, toasting glasses, table decorations, etc... Oh, and I forgot to mention that the cake was the best I have ever had!

Ok, that is enough for now. Email me if you would like to view the pictures or need more information. Sorry to be so long winded.

I must not have been notified of the previous reply, I apologize for my delay, I was only notified of today's post. I do not have a photo bucket account to be able to attach multiple pictures on cruise critic, as I have 100's of wedding pictures. However, ALL of my pictures, from ceremony, reception, around the ship, etc are on my facebook (both professional, and family pics, so you can see the lighting issues on the fantasy, and orange overtones on the photos). If you email me at transplanted2indiana at yahoo dot com, I will give you my facebook information so you can friend me to view the pictures.

 

As for advice, my wedding was perfect, my ONBOARD coordinator was perfect, and everything about Carnival was perfect, the entire onboard wedding experience was a dream wedding. But...... It was "the Wedding Experience" people that were terrible. It took me almost an entire year after my wedding to get proof of my marriage via my actual wedding certificate. And that was ONLY because I contacted the Bahamian Government and went through all of the channels myself to correct the Wedding Experiences problems. I know neither of you are getting married in the Bahamas, but still my one piece of best advice is if you think something may be wrong, or off a little then please ask, don't just suspect that they know what they are doing because it is their job. From my experience, they have no clue, and one simple mistake could cause the entire wedding to be void. For over 9 months I had to wonder if I was really legally married, and I could not change my name, all because of one piece of paper I knew that I needed but the coordinator never asked for when we went to the courthouse to get the license. I assumed she knew what she was doing and the instruction sheet was wrong. The officient went to pick up the license before he came on the ship, and they would not issue the license due to the missing document. They decided it best to not tell me until after the ceremony, of course by then it was too late, however the Wedding Experience took my document and said they would get it taken care of, but once I was off the ship, I was just a past customer that never really seemed to matter to them. Can you believe after 9 months of jumping through the hoops, and the waitlists and my work of getting the problem resolved, they called me and tried to take credit for it.....

 

Anyway, sorry to ramble about that issue in which you surely will not go through, and on to rambling about the good!!! Your situation will not be completely similar to mine, as I was not married until the 3rd day, therefore, I had multiple meetings every night at dinner with my onboard coordinator. This was very much needed, as I am very OCD, and I had my entire wedding and reception planned to the fullest extent. I also had lots of non traditional items going on, such as having everyone be part of the ceremony, and children involved in the sand ceremony, they also walked me down the aisle. I did not know it at the time, but because of all the planning I did, and all of the typed instructions I had, my coordinator said afterwards that she was more nervous than I was. Everything went off perfectly, but I am such a planner, I had literally thought of everything. Just keep this very important fact in mind. YOU will NOT be present for ANYTHING until you walk down the aisle. So make absolute sure that someone you TRUST BESIDES THE COORDINATOR knows exactly what you envision. You will not be the one setting up the guest tables, guest books, what songs to play when, or telling people when to walk down the aisle, etc, so have someone there you trust that does know. Again do not rely on The Wedding Experience for this, as their rep that came onboard for my wedding, actually argued with my mother on the order of MY wedding entrances. Of course I did not know this until afterwards either, so another nugget of advice is to have someone that you know be 100% knowledable of your entire plan, pretend like you will not even have a coordinator.

 

They played all of my ceremony music as stated, without error, right off of my BURNED CD. After the exit, we all came back in for photos, and they continued playing the music. It was very nicely done. I was married in the Forum Lounge, which would not have been my first choice, as it is very ugly and completely decorated in oranges and reds, however, it did not detract from the professional pictures. I was married in front of the red curtain, so you don't even see the rest of the room. The room and the colors did however, detract from EVERY SINGLE family taken photo. I am so thankful that I did not rely on family photos for my wedding pictures, as I would have cried my eyes out after seeing them all tinted orange. So another nugget of advice is double your budget for photos. You will LOVE the professional photos, and you will not be able to use any amateur ones due to the lights on the Fantasy. None of my reception, family taken photos, were of any quality either.

 

My reception was in the Disco since I hired the DJ. The disco and the DJ were awesome!!! We had entrance music, specific entrance instructions, and introductions which were very professionally and smoothly done, again with my burned CD's. I never personally met with the DJ, only gave a list of instructions, and order of things to my coordinator who handled it with him. I had the 1.5 hour reception and it was plenty of time for everything. We had the grand entrances, first dance, cake cutting, speeches, toasts, mother-son dance, father-daughter dance, and time for countless other songs to be played. I provided the music for the special songs, and 3 other songs to be sprinkled through. He played the rest of the music based on the songs provided. He did a great job of changing it if no one was dancing, or if we asked. He also took requests, as my son made everyone get up and dance to that club line dancing song which the name escapes me right now. It was awesome!! Then at the end, we also did one of those things where everyone lines up in two lines, and one person from each line dances down the middle together, then gets back at the end of the line. You will see what I mean in the pictures. This was a last minute suggestion by one of my friends, and actually was one of the most memorable moments, and created the best pictures. The food was amazing, what I ate of it anyway. I forgot to eat, I was so busy doing everything. They made way tooooo much, and more than what they said they would. I think they included almost everything on the menu that they gave us in the beginning, it also had sushi, and chicken nuggets for the kids. I did seek out the chef during the week though, to find out what he would be serving since you do not get a choice, he was super nice and just said not to worry about a thing, that we would be completely happy, and we were. There was soooo much food left over at the end, I felt so bad. I tried to give it to the workers, but they said they were not allowed, and that all of it would just be thrown out. The ice sculpture was amazing too! We were never left without a drink, and you could order pretty much what you wanted.

 

When you look at the pictures, I will warn you that I brought on almost everything that you will see, except for the ceremony decorations, and the cake topper. So none of what you see is what is included in the package. I made my own flowers, custom sand ceremony stuff, toasting glasses, table decorations, etc... Oh, and I forgot to mention that the cake was the best I have ever had!

 

Ok, that is enough for now. Email me if you would like to view the pictures or need more information. Sorry to be so long winded.

It's always good to be prepared but not all coordinators are bad. I had 2 and they were amazing.

Thanks for the great review, I sent you an email to see your pics :) Can't wait to see what's in store for us :) Also I was told that the wedding coordinators were from "A wedding for you" so hopefully we will have an easier time :)

Please post pics! My date is coming so fast, I am very eager to see what things will look like!:)

If you have facebook, you can email me and I will tell you how to find me there. There are hundreds of pictures, so I cannot post them all on here. :( I emailed Fantasy Bride a huge review and the specific's on how to view the pictures. My email is in a post above, and I will forward to you what I wrote to her. Have a great Day!!

Great review!!! I am getting married in on the Fantasy Ship in August and I am nervous about the set up so I will be sending you an email shortly!;)

I must not have been notified of the previous reply, I apologize for my delay, I was only notified of today's post. I do not have a photo bucket account to be able to attach multiple pictures on cruise critic, as I have 100's of wedding pictures. However, ALL of my pictures, from ceremony, reception, around the ship, etc are on my facebook (both professional, and family pics, so you can see the lighting issues on the fantasy, and orange overtones on the photos). If you email me at transplanted2indiana at yahoo dot com, I will give you my facebook information so you can friend me to view the pictures.

As for advice, my wedding was perfect, my ONBOARD coordinator was perfect, and everything about Carnival was perfect, the entire onboard wedding experience was a dream wedding. But...... It was "the Wedding Experience" people that were terrible. It took me almost an entire year after my wedding to get proof of my marriage via my actual wedding certificate. And that was ONLY because I contacted the Bahamian Government and went through all of the channels myself to correct the Wedding Experiences problems. I know neither of you are getting married in the Bahamas, but still my one piece of best advice is if you think something may be wrong, or off a little then please ask, don't just suspect that they know what they are doing because it is their job. From my experience, they have no clue, and one simple mistake could cause the entire wedding to be void. For over 9 months I had to wonder if I was really legally married, and I could not change my name, all because of one piece of paper I knew that I needed but the coordinator never asked for when we went to the courthouse to get the license. I assumed she knew what she was doing and the instruction sheet was wrong. The officient went to pick up the license before he came on the ship, and they would not issue the license due to the missing document. They decided it best to not tell me until after the ceremony, of course by then it was too late, however the Wedding Experience took my document and said they would get it taken care of, but once I was off the ship, I was just a past customer that never really seemed to matter to them. Can you believe after 9 months of jumping through the hoops, and the waitlists and my work of getting the problem resolved, they called me and tried to take credit for it.....

Anyway, sorry to ramble about that issue in which you surely will not go through, and on to rambling about the good!!! Your situation will not be completely similar to mine, as I was not married until the 3rd day, therefore, I had multiple meetings every night at dinner with my onboard coordinator. This was very much needed, as I am very OCD, and I had my entire wedding and reception planned to the fullest extent. I also had lots of non traditional items going on, such as having everyone be part of the ceremony, and children involved in the sand ceremony, they also walked me down the aisle. I did not know it at the time, but because of all the planning I did, and all of the typed instructions I had, my coordinator said afterwards that she was more nervous than I was. Everything went off perfectly, but I am such a planner, I had literally thought of everything. Just keep this very important fact in mind. YOU will NOT be present for ANYTHING until you walk down the aisle. So make absolute sure that someone you TRUST BESIDES THE COORDINATOR knows exactly what you envision. You will not be the one setting up the guest tables, guest books, what songs to play when, or telling people when to walk down the aisle, etc, so have someone there you trust that does know. Again do not rely on The Wedding Experience for this, as their rep that came onboard for my wedding, actually argued with my mother on the order of MY wedding entrances. Of course I did not know this until afterwards either, so another nugget of advice is to have someone that you know be 100% knowledable of your entire plan, pretend like you will not even have a coordinator.

They played all of my ceremony music as stated, without error, right off of my BURNED CD. After the exit, we all came back in for photos, and they continued playing the music. It was very nicely done. I was married in the Forum Lounge, which would not have been my first choice, as it is very ugly and completely decorated in oranges and reds, however, it did not detract from the professional pictures. I was married in front of the red curtain, so you don't even see the rest of the room. The room and the colors did however, detract from EVERY SINGLE family taken photo. I am so thankful that I did not rely on family photos for my wedding pictures, as I would have cried my eyes out after seeing them all tinted orange. So another nugget of advice is double your budget for photos. You will LOVE the professional photos, and you will not be able to use any amateur ones due to the lights on the Fantasy. None of my reception, family taken photos, were of any quality either.

My reception was in the Disco since I hired the DJ. The disco and the DJ were awesome!!! We had entrance music, specific entrance instructions, and introductions which were very professionally and smoothly done, again with my burned CD's. I never personally met with the DJ, only gave a list of instructions, and order of things to my coordinator who handled it with him. I had the 1.5 hour reception and it was plenty of time for everything. We had the grand entrances, first dance, cake cutting, speeches, toasts, mother-son dance, father-daughter dance, and time for countless other songs to be played. I provided the music for the special songs, and 3 other songs to be sprinkled through. He played the rest of the music based on the songs provided. He did a great job of changing it if no one was dancing, or if we asked. He also took requests, as my son made everyone get up and dance to that club line dancing song which the name escapes me right now. It was awesome!! Then at the end, we also did one of those things where everyone lines up in two lines, and one person from each line dances down the middle together, then gets back at the end of the line. You will see what I mean in the pictures. This was a last minute suggestion by one of my friends, and actually was one of the most memorable moments, and created the best pictures. The food was amazing, what I ate of it anyway. I forgot to eat, I was so busy doing everything. They made way tooooo much, and more than what they said they would. I think they included almost everything on the menu that they gave us in the beginning, it also had sushi, and chicken nuggets for the kids. I did seek out the chef during the week though, to find out what he would be serving since you do not get a choice, he was super nice and just said not to worry about a thing, that we would be completely happy, and we were. There was soooo much food left over at the end, I felt so bad. I tried to give it to the workers, but they said they were not allowed, and that all of it would just be thrown out. The ice sculpture was amazing too! We were never left without a drink, and you could order pretty much what you wanted.

When you look at the pictures, I will warn you that I brought on almost everything that you will see, except for the ceremony decorations, and the cake topper. So none of what you see is what is included in the package. I made my own flowers, custom sand ceremony stuff, toasting glasses, table decorations, etc... Oh, and I forgot to mention that the cake was the best I have ever had!

Ok, that is enough for now. Email me if you would like to view the pictures or need more information. Sorry to be so long winded.

My mistake! I'm shooting your an email right now!

It's always good to be prepared but not all coordinators are bad. I had 2 and they were amazing.

I loved your cake topper. Where did you get that from?

I loved your cake topper. Where did you get that from?

Etsy.com

Store: PanacheBride

Getting married in Charlton SC, on the fantasy in Aug2012. Would really love to see pic, And flower that people brought themself. Do they give u time to get dress,or is it a rush. I got the hour reception would love to see how it set up. Do carnival setup your room are ther any perk

Soontobemrs....

I would love to see your wedding photos. Email is loriruckman@yahoo.com

I'm getting married on the Carnival Fantasy in the Charleston, SC Harbor on April 21, 2013. Does anyone have any advice they could share? Also does anyone have any pictures of their ceremony and reception. I am very excited but also very nervous. Thanks in advance!!!

My one recommendation ia that if photos are important to you, see if you can request Sandip as your photographer. He is one of the (if not the most) senior photographers onboard and he is excellent. Absolutely incredibly talented. I don't know if they will let you request him, but I would definately look into it.