Breakaway Wedding Review - April 2014

When someone thinks of New York City; the images of yellow cabs, tall buildings, the beaming lights of Broadway, and the 24 hour hectic pace of New Yorkers and visitors from around the globe. When Norwegian Cruise Line announced the launch of the largest ship to call New York home year-round, they did so with the radical idea of mixing the high octane image of the city with the relaxation and pampering that only comes from cruising.

Ralph and I moved to Idaho from the east coast seven years ago. I needed a change since carrying around the burden of my experiences on 9/11 and Ralph was eager for the adventure. We may have left the New York metro area, but it will forever hold a special place in our hearts. That is why it just seemed perfect when we thought of getting married onboard the Norwegian Breakaway. Being able to get married in New York City was a way of symbolically acknowledging all that I had gone through and where I was now. The Breakaway’s New York motif would let us carry that theme across the entire destination event.

The planning began with the simple things first. For legal reasons we knew we had to get married while in port. After making the initial contact with the vendor that handles the weddings and special occasions for Norwegian Cruise Line, we scanned the many online cruise forums for suggestions, reviews, and tips. As with any topic, the forums were filled with plenty of opinions and experiences from brides on various cruise lines. As with weddings on land, it seems that the grooms are not as active in the preparations.

Probably the biggest surprise was that we would be able to have both sailing and non-sailing guests in attendance. This was a real game changer for us. We had discussed keeping the guest list to a very few family and friends that we thought might be able to join us on the cruise. We now could open up the guest list to meet the capacity allowed by the cruise line. The problem went from “we can’t invite everyone” to how do we decide who to invite.

A weekend of fun…

We had guests traveling from all over the country. For some this would be their first time in New York and their very first cruise. Anxious to give them the best experience, we planned a few pre-cruise events sure to leave a big impression.

We arranged a great hotel rate at the Millenium Hilton located right across the street from the 9/11 Memorial and new Freedom Tower, One World Trade Center. For anyone interested in visiting the Memorial, I arranged a group reservation for 30 people on Saturday morning. Words cannot express what it meant to share that sacred space with the support and love of family and friends. In return, I gave them a very personal tour of the memorial, area, and history.

Saturday also marked the last day of the weeklong Tribeca Film Festival in lower Manhattan. This festival was started after 9/11 by Robert De Niro in order to help bring life back to a recovering part of the city. The final day ended with a huge New York street festival filled with Broadway acts, vendors, stage shows, and games. It was the perfect way to get a glimpse into the excitement of the city.

Later that night, we arranged for a 50 passenger party bus to take a group of our guests out on the town. The night started with a private reception at Ward III, a quintessential New York bar located at 111 Reade Street. With open bar and a swanky bohemian feel, our guests mingled and laughed while enjoying custom cocktails designed specifically to their individual taste by master mixologists.

We then loaded everyone back on the bus and headed over to Robert De Niro’s award winning restaurant, the Tribeca Grill. The restaurant is located right where the street festival was earlier that day. We reserved a private dining room and gave our guests their choice of 4 items from each course. The brick walls of the restaurant feature artwork by Robert de Niro’s father.

After dinner, we once again jumped on the party bus to check out some New York landmarks and night spots including Hogs and Heifers and Times Square.

Ceremony and Reception…

All cruise lines perform a small miracle each week when they dock at 7:00 am, assist current departing passengers, load truckloads of supplies for the next week, and cheerfully welcome a whole new set of passengers by early afternoon the same day. As a result, weddings done on the ship while in port are no easy task and strictly limited in scheduling. Generally, a couple has 15-20 minutes for the ceremony and 1-2 hours for a reception.

There are many different options in terms of music, location on the ship for the ceremony and/or reception, flowers, cake, and drinks. We chose to have the wedding in the Manhattan Room, the Breakaway’s main dining room. The center of the room has a large dance floor, two story windows, and a masculine art-deco design theme. Guests would get the feeling of being on a ship since the windows overlooked the Hudson River and across to our home state of New Jersey.

Guests were welcomed on the ship by Captain Arnold, a larger than life personality with an infectious sense of humor and dedication to making sure your wedding day is special. For 40 years, Captain Arnold has been an active U.S. Coast Guard Licensed Captain. He is also the only Captain that is an ‘ordained chaplain” that is registered with the City Clerk’s Office of the City of New York. This is an important credential since the City of New York has special requirements that include getting preregistered with the city prior to performing a wedding. This is very important if you plan to bring your own officiant from outside of New York City.

Captain Arnold and his team headed by Tammi from Royal Ocean Events aided us by ensuring our guests knew where to meet, where to be, and what was expected of them while on the ship. They greeted us and our wedding party right away to escort us through security to guest check-in and onto the ship. This was especially helpful since we also had boxes filled with decorations, programs, favors for our guests and gift bags for our sailing guests. Despite over a year of planning, the wedding day excitement still had us frantic thinking about making sure every detail was what we imagined.

We were honored to have our ceremony performed by Richard Demarest, Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Boise, ID and a dear friend. Our dear friends Chris (Best Man) and Katie (Best Diva) were our witnesses and Ralph’s niece Lilliana was our flower girl.

Knowing that this would be a formal style wedding, we decided to break the expectation by playing the theme to Love Boat prior to the start of the ceremony. Guests were genuinely amused and the energy and excitement of the room could not be missed. We then began the processional music and proceeded down the aisle.

After the ceremony, our 90 guests made the short walk over the Bliss Lounge for the reception with hors d’oeuvres and open bar. Expecting that the crew and bar staff would be overwhelmed when everyone first walked in, we planned that our signature drink would be the Rebellious Fish, a Norwegian Cruise Line favorite that is a play on the famous Norwegian Freestyle Logo of a fish swimming the opposite way from the crowd.

Ralph made a welcome video for the reception that was played before our official entrance. He did a fantastic job of showing snapshots of our lives together and ending with a picture of our four dogs. The wedding coordinators and crew surprised us by modifying the lights on the wall to include our names. With so much going on, we did not even notice until we saw the pictures later!

As for the cake…As part of the New York theme, Norwegian Cruise Line and Buddy Valastro, the star of TLC’s The Cake Boss and owner of Carlo’s Bake Shop, have partnered to offer some of his best loved products on the ship. That gave us the idea of asking permission to have his shop make our wedding cake. Normally, wedding cakes are made on the ship, but NCL stepped up once again and gave us special permission to bring outside food onboard. Kelly Winters, Cake Sales Consultant at Carlo’s Bake Shop, took our initial design and helped us make it a reality. Guests are still raving about the way it looked and the many delicious layers.

We also had cookies made by Custom Cookies in Brooklyn. They were in the shape of a ship and decorated to look like the hull of the Breakaway with the artwork by Peter Max. We added our names to the large sun in the artwork. These also had to be pre-approved to bring on the ship.

After much dancing eating and drinking, it was time to bid farewell to our guests who were not going to be sailing with us. Royal Ocean Events and the ship Group Coordinators helped to ensure we did not have any last minute stowaways. Several people mentioned that they wished they had booked the cruise too.

The Cruise to Florida and the Bahamas…

We had a total of 24 sailing in our group. We arranged a group dinner back at the Manhattan Room that first night with everyone still dressed in their wedding finest. As mentioned, each of our sailing guests received a large beach bag with a cruise survival kit and a Ryan-Martinelli wedding t-shirt. The bags also contained a welcome letter with a list of everyone’s cabin number and instructions for some group events during the week. While our pictures captured the beauty of the day, our memories hold the joyful memories.

One night we went to the Cirque Dreams and Dinner Jungle Fantasy where we got VIP seating from our Haven Concierge Adrian Bica. Lilliana, our flower girl, enjoyed some special attention from the performers as they passed our tables and performed right in front of us.

On Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian’s private island paradise, we reserved one of the large cabanas. It was also on this day that we instructed everyone to wear the t-shirts they received in their gift bags so we could take a group photo. The cabana was a perfect respite from the sun and gathering place for our group. Over the last few years, NCL has done some major upgrades to the island including new tender docking, updated catering facilities, expanded activities, and other amenities.

Towards the end of the cruise, a large group of us met for dinner at Teppanyaki, the Japanese style restaurant where the master chefs entertain with their amazing skills by slicing, chopping, tossing, and juggling as the cook. We have done the Teppanyaki restaurants on other NCL ships, but this one was the best. The food was just bursting with flavor and we all left having eaten more than our fill!

The final night of our cruise gave us the most beautiful sunset. Just by chance, we all happened to find ourselves in the same area along the Norwegian Breakaway boardwalk. It was a spontaneous gathering that gave us all a chance to share our experiences during the week, share a drink, and toast to a wonderful cruise.

Final thoughts…

An unexpected result of our wedding experience happened after we returned home. Over the next couple of weeks, our guests started connecting on social media and building upon the newfound friendships that developed from our short time together. Our different worlds…family…east coast friends…Idaho friends…were all chatting, sharing pictures and experiences, and promising to meet again. In some ways, the celebration really has not ended…

(we posted pictures/video on a separate forum topic under the weddings heading)

Thanks for the report!

Congratulations and thank you for your very nice report.

Keith

Congrats Beachmonkey and Ralph! I have been following your posts the last few months, since we decided in April to get married in August (next week) on the Breakaway.

Our wedding ceremony is going to be the 1st day out at sea and we wll have 20 sailing guests.

We have booked the vow renewal package since it suited our needs and we are getting married at city hall the Friday before we depart.

Following the ceremony we are having a cocktail reception and then dinner in the Manhattan Room.

I've been told that we will be split up between 2-3 tables. Since this is our wedding dinner I wanted my guests to feel as connected as possible. How did your large group dinners work? My plan is to meet with the maitre'd first thing to let him know about our event and request since I am not sure how well the communication is between the groups department and the ship.

For future brides and grooms, when we get back we will post a review with tips as well!

I watched your videos and everyone looked like they had a fantastic time. We've been thinking about giving Breakaway a try and we just might after seeing the ship and reading your review.

An unexpected result of our wedding experience happened after we returned home. Over the next couple of weeks, our guests started connecting on social media and building upon the newfound friendships that developed from our short time together. Our different worlds…family…east coast friends…Idaho friends…were all chatting, sharing pictures and experiences, and promising to meet again. In some ways, the celebration really has not ended…

This also happened with our wedding and it is really cool to watch how everyone has mingled. We logged onto FB a few weeks ago and my wife's best friend posted pictures from Vegas where she was vacationing with one of my friend's from the wedding.

One of the best reviews I've read on this board. Watched your video and spotted Lipsz and her wife. Great pictures.

Congrats Beachmonkey and Ralph! I have been following your posts the last few months, since we decided in April to get married in August (next week) on the Breakaway.

 

Our wedding ceremony is going to be the 1st day out at sea and we wll have 20 sailing guests.

 

We have booked the vow renewal package since it suited our needs and we are getting married at city hall the Friday before we depart.

 

Following the ceremony we are having a cocktail reception and then dinner in the Manhattan Room.

 

I've been told that we will be split up between 2-3 tables. Since this is our wedding dinner I wanted my guests to feel as connected as possible. How did your large group dinners work? My plan is to meet with the maitre'd first thing to let him know about our event and request since I am not sure how well the communication is between the groups department and the ship.

 

For future brides and grooms, when we get back we will post a review with tips as well!

We were split between 3 tables situated right next to each other. Our tables were located in an area of the dining room that helped make it seem more intimate. In order to make our guests feel comfortable and special, Ralph and I sat at different tables. We also made a point to get up and check on our guests and mingle between courses.

Dinner at Teppanyaki had us all closer together as a group. We took up two of the cooking/serving stations, but it creates a large square. It worked great and was a lot of fun.

The Group Staff on the ship helped to organize and arrange everything. We still did lots of "management" just to be sure things happened as we wanted them. Trust but verify! ;)

Followed your signature from my thread about the kids talent show. I think I remember reading about your first Breakaway Sailing. So, while reading this time, I assumed your wedding was in 2013. I just noticed the wedding & cruise was April 2014. What was the date? We are April 17th. :)

English101, we got married on April 27, 2014. Have you written a review of your wedding?

-Robert

English101, we got married on April 27, 2014. Have you written a review of your wedding?

 

-Robert

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary this year. ;) no review but boy I wish I did! We sailed on Dawn. Mitsugirly's Star review brought back many memories! I didn't know about this site back then. :(