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My Allure of the Seas Wedding Review, 9.19.2017 (Google Drive Link to Pics)


kennedyqueen08
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Our first wedding email went out 8/30/2016. It gave the cost of interior, oceanview, and balcony rooms as well as a timeline for when payments were due. This served as a Save the Date.

 

Invitations went out on January 1. We used passport invitations shipped in little luggage boxes. ( https://weddingpassports.com ) We ended up with 19 rooms, 43 people total including us. Hubby and I booked an Owner's Suite (I am really glad that we did because we needed the space. We brought 4 standard issue military lockers full of decorations/supplies on the ship and it was nice to be able to have all our stuff in the room and not feel cluttered; it was also nice to be able to go the Coastal Lounge and get away from wedding guests whenever we needed a break).

 

We booked the Royal Romance package in Dazzles (initially I wanted to get married in the chapel, but I wasn't told until we had already paid the deposit that the chapel no longer exists on Allure...yes, I was upset but really, there was nothing to be done about it. I'm actually happy that it ended up that way because then the reception and the ceremony were all in one place and that just made things easier. We brought our own arch onto the ship to be assembled by us. All flowers in the wedding were silk. I ordered the arch flowers from Etsy, (https://www.etsy.com/shop/AndtheBLOOM ). My bouquet came from Etsy, (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HeyBouquet )and it was gorgeous. My bridesmaids' bouquets came from Etsy, ( https://www.etsy.com/shop/UptownGirlzz ). Instead of a guest book, I had a map drawn of all of our ports of call and the guests signed the matte around the map (of course, Irma made the map invalid because 2/3 ports of call changed but it was still nice), from Etsy of course, CompassRoseStudio. My cake topper also came from Etsy, mudcards. It was a model of the two of us (and she replicated my dress which I loved) with our dog (also replicated his markings).

 

 

I had 3 different wedding coordinators over the course of the year. There is a REALLY high turnover rate with Royal Ocean Events; however, I realized from other brides on these boards that they are slow to respond so I went in with that expectation and everything was really fine. Every time I sent an email I asked myself, would anything that I am asking change if I don't get a response within the next 3 days, the answer was typically No so I decided to just not be stressed about it because at that point, we already had so many people booked that I knew I wasn't going to back out. With that said, I was actually really happy with their service. We communicated exclusively via email, which I preferred to calling (I was given their phone numbers, but never used it) because I figured I would rather let them have time to look into what I am asking and be sure they're answering the questions correctly than to have them possibly make up an answer to my question off the top of their head simply because I was on the phone with them (or even worse, be put on hold for 10 minutes while they look for an answer to their question). They typically responded with 48-72 hours but a couple of times it was a week before I got a response.

 

Two days before Set Sail, the onboard coordinator, Angel (her name is EXTREMELY appropriate as she is the BEST) called and talked through some logistics with me.

--She let me know that we would in fact have a rehearsal the day before the wedding (previous coordinators told me I would have to do this informally on my own),

--they would be able to steam my dress before the wedding (I was previously told that this service would be unavailable),

--we would be able to get into the venue at 8 AM to set up the arch (I was previously told that we wouldn't get in until 30 minutes before the start of the wedding),

--I would need to set up my appointment for special occasion makeup when I got onboard (It was $75 + 18% gratuity; I wanted a makeup trial to be sure that I liked the girl's work so I scheduled a makeup session--this one was also full price--the night before the wedding. While she was VERY sweet, I just didn't like it at all. I'm so glad I trusted my gut and did the trial. I would encouraged you to do this as you need to know what you will look like on the day of. I ended up just doing my own makeup. )

--She would come to my room at 9AM the morning of the wedding to pick up the guestbook, cake topper, decorations for the cake table (sea shells) flower girl baskets and ring bearer pillow, my reception shoes and anything else I needed to get to the venue. She made sure that these were distributed/set up properly.

 

I kept hearing on this board that the cruise lines don't confirm your actual wedding venue until a few weeks out from the ceremony but that wasn't the case for me. Once I paid my deposit (February 2017) the venue and date were locked in. They did end up changing the start time of my wedding from 12 PM (which the invitations read), to 11:30 AM because it was a legal wedding and the captain apparently had something to do. I was a little annoyed because we had printed/laminated welcome letters with a "Wedding Day Itinerary" for the guests/bridal party and that all became invalid...but again, I decided well before I got onto the ship that I would just roll with things and ultimately it ended up not being a big deal (though we did have 2 family members who missed the wedding bc they showed up at noon).

 

We created welcome bags with a welcome letter, which we laminated and placed in the bag.

Bag contents: a lanyard (for your SeaPass), sunglasses, an adult coloring book (because sometimes you just need to color), crayons, Post-its (to leave notes on other guests’ doors), a pen, a highlighter (to mark your Cruise Compass with thingsyou want to do each day), insect repellent wipes, ear phones, Clorox wipes,Tide Travel Sink Packets, Purell, Benadryl, motion sickness patches and Advil, a magnet to go on each guests' room door (ordered off of Zazzle, I think) which was done in the wedding colors and stated "Wedding guest of "bride" and "groom", Allure of the Seas.

 

Initially, we had planned to have Royal Caribbean deliver the bags to each room (along with the rest of the guests' luggage) for $2 each, but we scrapped that idea because they just place the bags in the hallways NEAR the room (not necessarily in front of the room) and I was scared that people wouldn't pick up the bag because they wouldn't think that it was theirs. Instead, we hand delivered the bags to various hotels around Fort Lauderdale the night before (we were initially all staying in one hotel which would have been MUCH easier, but with Hurricane Irma, there was no power at our first hotel).

 

The photographer, I think his name was Israel, was BOMB! He got some awesome shots and you would never know that there was only one person taking pics from all the angles he got. He had us walk all over the ship taking pics and eventually we got cranky because we were hungry and our feet started hurting lol. So we kinda cut the pics outside the venue short but I wish we hadn't because his pics were phenomenal. He had them all ready to go in 2 days. We paid for all digital pics as part of our package and we didn't buy any prints (luckily, he wasn't pushy about it).

 

The food was AMAZEBALLS! We did the platinum buffet and I had 3 lobster tails + 2 pieces of filet mignon alone lol. No really, I was worried because we couldn't do a taste test prior, but everybody kept talking about how the food was delicious and beautifully presented. I decided to do the buffet because although there is free food all over the ship, I really wanted a traditional wedding reception and I felt like it would take away from the moment if people left to go get food from the WindJammer and bring it back into the venue.

 

The cake was almond with cream cheese frosting. It was good. I despise fondant so I kept reminding them that I wanted buttercream frosting which they obliged. Because of no fondant, the lines weren't very crisp and the small blue strip of fondant that they placed around the bottom of each tier was a bit wonky, but it wasn't extra noticeable. The cake was okay, nothing to write home about but we did manage to finish all 3 tiers after about 3 days. Of note, you cannot take the top layer home (no food allowed off the ship).

 

My bridesmaids' gift was a beach towel with their names on it, came from personalization mall.com

 

The DJ was amazing! Before the wedding I sent him a list of songs that I wanted played and he did a good job of getting all of them in smoothly.

 

That's all I can think of for now, I have been trying to add pics, but cruise critic won't let me be great lol, I will add a link to my Google Drive. It contains some wedding pics so you can see the photographer's style, that first email that we sent out to wedding guests, the welcome letter, the ceremony wording from Royal Caribbean

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B8_HcAxKfJqfX1dycU5QempsbUU?usp=sharing

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

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Wow thank you so much for sharing. My fiance and I are planning a wedding on the Symphony of the Seas next year. Your pictures look beautiful! But I wanted to know how much did the total cost of your wedding come up to? (DJ, food, etc) I always see the prices of the different packages and they always say you only get dinner for the bride and groom at a specialty restaurant, but that's it. How much did the platinum buffet cost? I want to have as much of a traditional wedding as possible. I want the ceremony, reception dinner and dancing at the reception.

Thanks again for sharing!

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Thank you for posting all of this information! It is so hard to find details about weddings on this cruise. I have a wedding coming up in May, which is so exciting!

 

I was wondering... How did you get the arch on board? How did you go about setting it up? Did you set the flowers in once you put the arch up or did you have the flowers set in already.

 

I love the idea of an arch, and I think we may try to do it!

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited by Cory.f
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