Our Carnival Cruise Wedding Journey! Come read!

So my Fiance and I are about 11 months out till our cruise wedding on the Carnival Pride.:)

Back in May of 2016 we go engaged on the same boat. The Pride is by far our favorite boat. The size is perfect. The decor is romantic and has the perfect amount of cheesiness. The food is great as usual. But in all honestly, getting married with our friends and family on the boat we got engaged on is going to be a dream.

THE DRESS: The first thing I did before booking or planning anything was get my dress. David's Bridal was having a sale and my mom and I went together to find a dress. I tried on 2 dresses and the second one was everything I ever dreamed of. I am 32 so I grew up in the late 80's-early 90's and I have always been a huge little mermaid fan. My dress is exactly that. Think about the end of the movie when Ariel marries prince Eric on the ship. That sparkly ball gown...now just minus the puffy sleeves. The dress is by the designer Zac Posen and was originally $1300 but for some reason on that magical day it was on sale for $500. SCORE. I also got a veil, a garment bag and the dress restoration kit, (was on sale from $200 down to $60)

I will post pictures of my dress after the wedding just so I can make sure it is secret from my man.

I saw the easiness of getting this dress as a sign that I was on the right track for my wedding.

HOW WE CHOSE TO CRUISE FOR OUR WEDDING: We knew we wanted to do cruise but there was apprehension for one specific reason. My sister at the time of my engagement was pregnant with twins.....on top of the daughter she had had a year before as well as two older daughters. (So as of today that is 2 6 month olds, 1 year and a half year old, a 9 year old and a 16 year old, her and her husband) I was terrified to put the pressure on her to be able to get on the boat for the wedding. Its not cheap and I knew it would be a stretch. But having my only sister and her kids there meant everything to me. So after a few months after the babies were born i sat her down and she gave me a roaring BOOK THE CRUISE. And she promised she would be there with her clan. Once I got the good to go on that....I called Carnival.

DECIDING ON WHAT WEDDING CRUISE: I knew we wanted the pride so it was a matter of deciding on where wedding would be and what time of year we would do it. We chose the cruise to the Bahamas. (Pt. Canaveral, Nassau, and Freeport) My fiance and I have done this cruse before but the price was right (especially for our guests) . We also decided on November, because hurricane season is over and the weather should be great. The next step was...Do we get married the day of embarkation or at a port???? I have been on the boat while people are getting married during embarkation and I just didn't feel like it was for me. We decided to have our wedding on the boat at Port Canaveral. The port is a bit boring, and honestly no one in my crew is going to do any excursions there so we thought it would be great. Most people will be off the boat and we will get some great photos with the Florida Sunshine in the background.

CHOOSING PACKAGE: As for what wedding package we chose we decided on the "Time to Celebrate Big" package. I think it came to about $2500 for the ceremony and a 1.5 hour reception. I just looked on Carnival weddings website and it seems they have changed the Brochure and whole set up for weddings.....So I guess I am lucky! Here is the new wedding Brochure https://www.carnival.com/~/media/CCLUS/Images/pdf/Weddingspricelist.pdf

THE MUSIC: My fiance is a musician and I am a big time music lover. They have 2 options for the DJ, one is where you have a DJ who mixes the music for you. He creates a mix based off of a "general music theme" and will use your MP3's of songs for the special things like garter toss or first dance(if the song is not on the carnival music library) the other option is to make your own playlist and the coordinator just pushes play. (with this option the music plays softly in the background and you do not get to have reception in the nightclub.

The price difference was about 50 dollars difference (50$ more to use the DJ) So we went with that one, we really wanted the club setting and we are going to do everything to communicate with the DJ the style we are looking for. Because under no circumstances will I want Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez played at my limited time(1.5 hours) wedding reception. There is a sheet to fill out and we plan on "suggesting" what we are looking for.

PHOTOGRAPHY: This is one I am still brainstorming about. I am a professional photographer. If i could shoot my own wedding.... I would, So this is a big deal to me and I will do everything in my power to get what I want. The beauty of this is that Iphones take pretty amazing photos, I will have photographer friends that have their cameras and I WILL have my camera on hand lol. So if I want to partake in the shots of the Groom with the bridesmaids....Im gonna do it. I also will be more than happy with 15 prints from the photographer and just ALL of the proofs on a CD or flash drive....this is a work in process and I know I will have to be prepared to speak to the photographer on the boat and sweet talk them a bit. Any advice from previous couples?

RECEPTION FOOD: My fiance and I are vegetarians(well I am a pescatarian) We had to ask the coordinator for a special menu to choose some of our Hors d’oeuvres so some of them can be vegan....this will be a great option and I am so glad they offer it.

BRIDESMAIDS: I have 3 Bridesmaids proper....one friend that I would love to include are not sure if they are coming yet and I will probably have one junior bridesmaid. We found their dresses on ASOS.com they have BEAUTIFUL DRESSES. We decided to choose 4 different dresses that are all similar and let the girls pick whatever one they want. My dress has sequins on it so that is part of the theme. So When my girls choose their dresses I will share.

I also have been making gift bags for the bridesmaids....they will have silk robes for us to get reading in, little notebooks with their initials on them, tropical themed drink tumblers(one of the best things to bring on a cruise....having a big cup full of water helps save one in the middle of the night from dehydration from too much sun and booze), the tumbler will be filled with things like advil, wet-whips, tampons lip gloss and other little emergency things.

For the Groomsmen we found some really cool flask sets with little shot glasses that have skulls on them(got these at home goods during Halloweeen for 7$ each.

Well this is my Journey so Far I have a lot more to share. Coming in the next few months....

Do I get a second dress to rock after the reception , so we can party on the deck?

How will our song list turn out?

Should I plan a small party at my beach house this summer, for those that cannot come on cruise?

What should I get for my mom and new mother in law?

SO many photos to come too.

I am SOOOOOO excited to share our journey with you all!

Thanks for Reading

"PHOTOGRAPHY: This is one I am still brainstorming about. I am a professional photographer. If i could shoot my own wedding.... I would, So this is a big deal to me and I will do everything in my power to get what I want. The beauty of this is that Iphones take pretty amazing photos, I will have photographer friends that have their cameras and I WILL have my camera on hand lol. So if I want to partake in the shots of the Groom with the bridesmaids....Im gonna do it. I also will be more than happy with 15 prints from the photographer and just ALL of the proofs on a CD or flash drive....this is a work in process and I know I will have to be prepared to speak to the photographer on the boat and sweet talk them a bit. Any advice from previous couples?"

In response to the above...

My husband and I were also hoping to come away with just a few prints but all if not most of the digital images from the Carnival photographer. Unfortunately, Carnival is aware that people would rather have the files instead of prints so they drive a hard bargain. We ended up having to buy way more physical prints that we wanted before the photographer would compromise and allow us to add some digital file only shots. I can't complain because they are in it to make money and they know they have less success now that so many wedding guests take pictures with high quality camera phones. We purchased maybe 60 shots from Carnival (though it might be more, I have to check again) but our guests sent us another 800 images from their phones. I don't regret any of Carnival's images (aside from the airbrushing) because it was nice to have the professionally posed pictures in addition to the candid shots. Hope this tidbit of info helps! Congrats and good luck!

Also, I had every intention of wearing a second dress for the reception, especially because I planned to get in the water during the wedding ceremony. I ended up choosing a dress that prevented me from budgeting two dresses so I just wore a different set of jewelry for the reception. I wore pearls for the ceremony but totally blinged out the jewelry for the reception. It worked out well!

Thank you for the advice. I figure that it's going to be an issue getting those files and I will have to buy a lot of prints. But I will just have to stick to my guns and do the best I can. They will get my monies worth if its the last thing I do lol!

I am getting married in february and just looked over the new price list. I guess we got lucky because ours has the open bar included. It seems alot more expensive now. I think we got the same one you did. Score for both of us! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!!!

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Wow! I just looked at the updated price list. I'm getting married on Pride July 2 of this year and I'm very thankful that I booked on the old package too.

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Wow! I just looked at the updated price list. I'm getting married on Pride July 2 of this year and I'm very thankful that I booked on the old package too.

 

 

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Hey! My fiancé and I are getting married December 2 on the Magic! We have the new package. I was wondering what the differences were? Seems like I've read a few people say they are glad they booked the old package so I was just curious. Thank you [emoji4]

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The photography element is a tough one for me as well. I'm a hobbyist portrait photographer in the process of moving to professional (doing lots of education and portfolio building right now). Next week we are doing a vow renewal on our cruise and I'm hoping to do some training with a friend so she can get the photos I want on my full frame camera. I have prepaid for a package that includes "all photos from the cruise" but I know they are going to try to exclude our renewal photos. And, I'm not sure I care, based on the posing and style of the images I've seen from other cruise wedding/renewal events. I think with several photographer friends in attendance, you will be happier with their images.

Enjoy your planning and big day-- things will go "wrong" (as in not exactly as you planned) but it is truly a magical day.

I'm glad I booked the old package as well! I'm getting married on the beach while in port at Grand Cayman. In the past you weren't able to get married on board while in grand cayman tho so that is actually a bit comforting to me to know that you can now, just in case we can't dock.

I'm super excited about the whole thing!!! I 'm curious about timing as I am trying to figure out if we can get off the boat to get hair and makeup done. I know I can get hair on the boat, but not makeup. That is my second biggest concern; photography is my first. I really want nice pictures and I'm scared about not knowing what I'll get. But I'm just going to go with the flow. I'm having an at home reception when we get home so if the pics are not up to my expectations, we can get a photographer (I know a few good ones) that can do a new photo shoot for us.

I am getting married in february and just looked over the new price list. I guess we got lucky because ours has the open bar included. It seems alot more expensive now. I think we got the same one you did. Score for both of us! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!!!

 

 

 

How was your wedding????!!!