We're Back! Carnival Dream Wedding Review 06-22-14

Brian and I have returned home from our AMAZING wedding cruise. We did an embarkation wedding on June 22, 2014 aboard the Carnival Dream cruise ship in New Orleans, LA. Like others before me, there is a good chance that this will turn into a multi part review, as there is SO MUCH to tell. But, I will try to get it all out there to help upcoming brides, as I know that the past reviews were always super helpful to me. But, I will also try to cut back and try to stick to the helpful information.

When I first booked the cruise & wedding, they sent me ALL of the wedding information right away. Afterward, my contacts at Carnival and The Wedding Experience were very helpful and great to work with. I did find that they don't really offer a lot of information or choices, but there are a lot of things they can do if you ask them. As expected, I received the final call with venue and everything about two weeks before wedding.

So, I got to New Orleans on 06/17, since New Orleans Parish marriage license requires that you apply for license at least 3 days prior to wedding ceremony. I did learn that you can have officiant sign a waiver of this requirement, but I figured it would be good to get there early and sightsee anyway. Nobody else arrived in town until 06/20 (including the groom), so I had a few amazing days to myself to enjoy the city, relax, and sightsee. When everyone arrived on 6/20 (25 guests: 14 sailing, 11 non-sailing) it got a little hectic to coordinate everyone, but we managed. We had decided to throw a "welcome party" at our hotel on 6/21 (night before wedding). Hotel let us use their public dining room free of charge and we ordered 10 pizzas and some soda. It was a great idea and everyone had an awesome time getting to know each other. We really liked being able to spend time with everyone in a more casual environment, especially for the non-sailing guests that were only there for a couple days.

Morning of the wedding, I had hair & makeup artists come to my hotel at 6:30am to do my hair & makeup and hair for bridesmaids & flower girl. I used Flawless Bride and they did an amazing job. Brian and I decided it would be too much trouble to avoid seeing each other before wedding, so he was kind enough to run out and get coffee & breakfast for all of us while we got pretty.

Getting everyone to port was a bit hectic. But, when we got there, Carnival was able to pick out who was with the wedding and directed everyone flawlessly. We were extremely impressed with how efficiently they were at getting everyone where they needed to be and getting everyone checked in. Our wedding coordinator, Jill, was absolutely amazing (photo attached). She really knew how to handle everything and made everything so easy.

I got to the port at about 9:30am with all our luggage. Brian helped transport his family and came about an hour later. But, during that time I was able to talk to coordinator and officiant to go over all the details. I told all guests to be at port 10-10:30am, and most of them were there toward the earlier part of that. The time waiting at port seemed to fly by and we boarded the ship around 11:15am. People chatted, they checked in, listened to instructions, and I don't think anyone was bored or anything during the wait. My sister took a few photos before she was informed that photos aren't allowed in the terminal. We were supposed to board the ship at 11:00am, but got delayed a few minutes because there were some people from earlier cruise that hadn't gotten off the ship yet.

Once on board, Jill made sure everyone knew where ceremony was and what time to be there, then directed everyone to the buffet. She walked all wedding party up to our room, where we quickly dropped off our stuff then also went down to grab some quick food at the buffet. We figured that we'd be so busy at the reception that we should make sure to eat beforehand... and I am SO glad we did. We only had about 15 minutes to get food & eat, so it was quick, but we were so busy chatting at the reception that we barely touched the food there. It would have been a very long day if we had missed lunch and had to wait until 8:15pm dinner to eat. Being the first people to board the ship, there really weren't any lines at the buffet and people seemed to like the food.

After eating, we quickly went back to room and the guys grabbed their stuff and went to their room to change. We only had about 10 minutes before the photographer, Bojana, showed up. She got there just as they were tying up my corset back, which created some good photos. She did try to get a few posed shots, which was a bit frustrating since we were in a hurry to get to the ceremony location on time, and I wanted to finish getting ready, but it all worked out.

You look so pretty! Can't wait to read more :)

how far out did you book flawless brides and how much do they charge? wow you look amazing. glad to here everything went well

how far out did you book flawless brides and how much do they charge? wow you look amazing. glad to here everything went well

I booked about 6 months out. They had really good reviews and seems highly recommended on all sites I searched. After having my own experience with them, I have to agree that they were amazing. I don't normally wear a lot of makeup, so I was worried about it not looking natural or not looking like myself. It was a bit heavier than I'm accustomed to, but it has to be to look good for photos, and it wasn't so overdone that it looked odd in person. Jessica did a good job at getting the right balance and making it look subtle and naturally beautiful. In the early morning photos where they are doing the makeup, it looks heavier because they knew it would be 5 hours before ceremony and 10 hours before posed photos and would fade some. By the time we got to ceremony & photos, it was perfect. They also started with really tight curls in my hair & a lot of hairspray, since my hair is thin and doesn't hold curl well. By the wedding, reception, and photos, it was a much softer wave, rather than tight curls.

They also did great with hair for our 3-year old and 6-year old girls in our wedding party.

And my husband has now decided that I really need to start wearing lipstick and eyeliner more often because he thought it was so sexy and the most beautiful he's ever seen me, which is always good.

At the time I booked, it was $50 for hair, $60 for airbrush makeup, and $50 travel fee to hotel, but it looks like they raised rates since then. Here is their website: http://www.flawless-bride.com/services.html which shows current pricing. I've also attached some photos from my big day so you can see how the hair & makeup looked.

You look lovely :)

Oh, my welcome/favor bags! I decided to hand these out at our welcome pizza party on Saturday night, so that I didn't have to worry about carrying them all on board. They were a big hit and I was thrilled to see people using various items throughout the week.

I bought plain navy blue canvas tote bags with zipper closure, then stencil painted them to give them a more nautical look (photo attached). I did the anchor by printing and cutting stencil onto freezer paper (you can find instructions by searching "Freezer paper stencil" online), then painted stripes just using painters tape to mask it off. I bought the bags in bulk online. Total cost, including paint, came to about $3-4 per bag. I also didn't want to put anything really referencing the wedding, so that people would likely use them again after the trip, so I just put "June 2014" on it.

Inside the bags I included:

* 20 oz Bubba Mug - Several people actually used these on the cruise. They were amazing at keeping drinks cold and the ice would last most of the day. Plus, Brian learned quickly that it holds a lot more soda than the cups the bar provides so he could fill it up and not have to go back as often for refills.

* Lanyards with zipper pocket for Sign & Sail card (photo attached) - Everyone used these and thought it was the best thing ever. The zipper pocket was handy for keeping a little bit of cash for tips or I kept a couple of my prescription pills in there so I didn't need to keep going back to the room for them. Some of our guests had people asking where to get them or even offered to buy them from us. I actually bought them in bulk early on before I knew how many people were attending, so I have extras left over. I think I have about 35 left if anyone is interested in buying them (PM me for more info).

* Water proof phone case lanyard (photo attached) - Several people used these at the pool or beach. It also came in super handy on the excursions. We went cave tubing in Belize and these were perfect for carrying our stuff in the wet conditions and allowing access to our phones/cameras during the excursion to take photos.

* Snacks - goldfish crackers, pretzels, cracker jacks, Altoid mints - These did come in handy at times (especially to take on the excursions with the kids), but many people didn't use them with the all-you-can-eat cruise food.

* Oh No Kit - bandaids (used for blistered feet), aspirin (used), tums & pepto bismal tablets (MIL & FIL both got sick early in the cruise and used these. Luckily it was a short 24 hour bug), shout wipes (don't know if used), safety pins (used on wedding morning when my bow kept coming undone), small 4' roll of duct tape (used at least once), ginger candy (for motion sickness - not sure if used or not... nobody in our group really got motion sickness), EmergenC drink mix

* Hangover Kit - Aspirin & Electrolyte drink mix - MIL used both of these when she got sick early in the cruise. Husband used the drink mix one day for hangover.

* Protection Kit - Sunscreen wipes & bug repellent wipes - These were easy to carry around (even fit in the card lanyard) and came in handy a couple times. For reapplying sunscreen at beach, these are more handy than carrying a bottle of sunscreen. And we used the bug repellent wipes for excursions in Belize & Honduras where mosquitos were a problem. Most people didn't think to bring bug spray, so it was great to include in bag.

* Purell All-in-one Laundry Sheets - I know I used them to do laundry on the trip. A couple others did laundry on the ship, but I think they brought their own laundry detergent. But the all-in-one sheets were awesome for vacation.

* My SIL put together a bath/body kit for each bag that included: sunscreen, bath fizzy bomb, soap, SPF lip balm, and after sun aloe spray. The lip balm was used by many. Several of us used the aloe spray often after getting a bit too much sun (unfortunately I got burnt the day before wedding, so my shoulders are red in my photos), so that was definitely useful. The bath stuff wasn't really feasible to use on the ship, but may get used back home.

* Post-it notes, pen, and highlighter - I'm not sure if anyone used the highlighter, but the pen & post-it notes were handy for leaving notes on each others doors about meeting up. We saw a few cabins that put up magnetic dry erase boards on the doors. I wish I had thought of that because it would have been super useful.

* I included a schedule of events for the week (excursions, formal nights, etc.), large map of the ship, and a sheet that had names, photos & cabin numbers of all guests sailing in our group. We had our parents & siblings all on the cruise and several of them hadn't previously met. We did find them often hanging out together though around the ship. I also included a magnetic clip, which I used to hang all these on our wall. It was useful for us to keep list of cabin numbers by the phone to call people if needed.

I think that was everything... I'll edit later if I think of anything else that I forgot to include in the list.

After getting ready, the coordinator went to direct the guys on where to be and what to do and our photographer walked us down to the ceremony location, which was at the Chambers Conference Room. The ceremony was beautiful. We walked down the aisle to instrumental piano version of Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. We did hear afterward that there were a couple people whispering "Wait, is this Metallica? That is awesome!", which made me feel good about our song choice. If interested, I would suggest looking up the piano version on youtube because it is beautiful and the message behind the song is great for a wedding.

After dad walked me down the aisle, rather than "giving me away", we had officiant ask "Who supports this marriage?" and had all four of our parents stand and say "We do". I think they all appreciated that. Immediately after that, Brian and I both looked at each other and gasped as we both realized at the same time that we both forgot to bring our vows. :eek: Luckily, the officiant had a copy of it there that we could use. Then, it was difficult to put the rings on because it was hot & humid, but we managed and had a good chuckle about it. Everything else went quickly and without any issues.

After the ceremony, they had us walk to the back of the room where we signed the marriage license. We had both our mothers sign it as witnesses, rather than our MOH or BM, which they both appreciated and meant a lot to them. We got a few hugs and congratulations, then we went back up front to get family photos. We tried to keep it simple and did them in family groups. We did one photo with everyone, one with all of grooms family, one with all of brides family, one with parents, one with wedding party, and one with non-family. Then they led everyone to the reception location at the Caliente Nightclub. Brian and I followed behind (so they could announce us). Before entering the reception, coordinator went to get my sister so she could bustle up my dress. This took a few minutes since it was a 9-point asymmetrical bustle, but we got it done. Then we were announced and entered the reception... which I'll describe in my next post.

Gorgeous pictures!!!

Beautiful!! Did you have to pay extra for the flowers and columns?

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I love the bags! Amazing! I've been debating having them but you might have just sold me! :) They were awesome! Where did you purchase all of the stuff?

Beautiful!! Did you have to pay extra for the flowers and columns?

 

 

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That was all included in the standard wedding package. We didn't add anything to ceremony decoration. And the only thing we added to reception decoration was the flowers & ribbon on cake.

I think the only other customization was that I did bring my own bouquets for myself & bridemaids because I really wanted blue orchids. They were pre-assembled real touch bouquets I bought from afloral.com for about $10 each. I had planned to pull them apart and mix with white flowers, but ran out of time & energy, so I just wrapped some ribbon on the stems and used them as they were. I was actually really happy with them. We even caught our photographer smelling them and had to convince her that they weren't real. And one of my bridesmaids went to their room to find that their room steward had put their bouquet in water.

I love the bags! Amazing! I've been debating having them but you might have just sold me! :) They were awesome! Where did you purchase all of the stuff?

I bought most stuff on Amazon. Some came from dollar stores. Pens, highlighters & post-it notes were bought at Staples during back to school sales. Some of it (bags & lanyards) I found by just doing google search for discount/bulk of whatever item I was searching for.

The Bubba Mugs I bought from Target... well multiple Target stores. During the time I debated buying them, Bubba Mugs stopped making this size/style in navy blue. So, I ended up having to go around to 8 different Target stores buying the last of their stock of the navy blue mugs. I also did smaller travel mugs for the kids that I personalized with their names, which I bought at dollar store.

The reception was pretty amazing and we all had a great time. Our group didn't do a whole lot of dancing, which I kind of expected with only 25 people, but people did dance and people chatted, and had a great time. And they really liked it after they realized that the premium liquors are all included in the open bar! :D

The food spread was beautiful and everyone really liked the food options. We had seriously debated changing the appetizer choices and had looked at all the alternate menu options, because we weren't sure people would like all that high-class, odd sounding food. But, most people absolutely loved it all. We had a lot of compliments on the food choices and the quality of the food. And I loved the look of the fruit cups with the sugar decoration and that they put veggies in cups with dressing.

When we first got in there, they really try to do all the scheduled events right away. So, you immediately do your first dance, then father-daughter dance, then mother-son dance, then ceremonial cake cutting, then toasts... all right away, one right after the next. So, some of that felt a bit rushed and like they were just pushing to get through it all. But, after that all was out of the way, were able to relax a bit and socialize with our guests. They don't actually serve the cake until last 1/2 hour of reception though.

The cake was absolutely delicious! We ordered the vanilla cake with the upgraded Bavarian cream filling. The filling was definitely worth the extra cost. We had enough cake left over to eat at dinner for most of the week. They were supposed to do a custom design on the cake. I had e-mailed them about a month prior to wedding and sent photos of what I wanted (a criss-cross diamond pattern in the icing) and they had agreed that it could be done at no additional cost. But, when we got to the wedding, it was the standard Carnival wedding cake design (swirled piping on sides), not what I had asked for. But, it wasn't a big deal... the cake was still beautiful. I had provided ribbon & flowers to be added to it, which the coordinator took from me and had assembled on the cake. They did a great job with it and I was happy with the end result.

So, going into the reception.

The coordinator was out in the hall with us to direct us on when to enter and signaled to the DJ when we were ready. He announced us, we walked in, and music started playing for our first dance... except it was the wrong song. The DJ had started playing my father-daughter dance song. But, our coordinator picked up on it right away and ran into the DJ booth to get it fixed, which happened very quickly. As you will see in my review, this wasn't the only time she had to go in to yell at the DJ. He really is the only part of the wedding that we weren't thrilled with, but we just let dealt with it and didn't let us really bother us. For the most part, we didn't really even pay much attention to the music anyway during the reception. Anyway, they get the right song playing and we start our dance. We had taken some dance lessons prior to the wedding, but hadn't informed any of our family or friends about that, so they were pretty surprised. It didn't quite go as planned though. Unfortunately, groom's shoes kept sticking to the floor and as a result, he stepped on my dress a few times, which totally threw us off our choreography. But, we added a few extra steps, probably missed a few, and just kept moving. And we started cracking up with laughter about it. All our guests saw was us having a really great time dancing a really nice dance. They had no clue we messed up at all and loved that we were laughing and smiling and having such a great time. And our photos look like we are having a great time. The DJ was supposed to announce to have everyone join us part way through the song after we did a dip... it took him about 30 seconds or so after that... after us awkwardly trying to figure out how to continue our dance after we ran out of steps. But, again we managed. Then the next strike for DJ was when the song abruptly stopped at the end, before the song was actually over. Between having others join in late, and cutting song short, did make it a very short time to have everyone else come out to dance. But, whatever. Then we did father-daughter dance & mother-son dance. DJ did correctly announce that we wanted everyone to join in with the mother-son dance, rather than it being a solo dance.

Then they went immediately into cutting the cake. The waiter guys there were really awesome. We hadn't planned on tips for them, but shortly after the cake cutting groom decided that we definitely needed to tip them because they did a great job. Luckily we had brought some extra cash just in case. But, it was real quick just to get the photos: slice the cake, feed each other, pour champagne, drink champagne, etc.

Then the wedding party toasts. Best man did a good speech about how much trouble him and groom got into as kids (most they didn't get caught at). My sister (maid of honor) did a really emotional speech (with tears in her eyes, breaking voice, and nearly making everyone else cry) about how she can see how happy groom makes me and welcoming him to the family. My sister-in-law/best friend (my high school friend married my brother) gave a really fun speech about how we had decided back in high school that we didn't want to be best friends, because friends can come and go, so we decided to be each others "mattress" - a comfortable spot that you can always fall back on, you always know its there waiting for you at the end of the day, and you can trust that it will be soft and won't hurt you when you need it. That concept had always been kept between us, so everyone really loved hearing that. After that, my 6-year old bridemaid/niece decided she wanted to give a speech and asked for the microphone. So, she gets up there and in her cute kid voice says, "Um, welcome to the family, Uncle Boots" (which is her nickname for my husband because she went through a phase where she called people by random words and that one stuck for him)... is was so adorable.

After that, all the obligatory stuff was done, so we were able to socialize and enjoy the party for a while.

Thanks for the report!

With only 25 guests, it was great that we actually had time to actually talk to everyone and socialize. The dance floor never got really crowded, but people did dance, or sat and talked, and everyone had a great time.

After the toasts, our wedding coordinator immediately asked if we wanted something to drink and went to the bar for us and make sure we had drinks in our hands for the rest of the reception. She was awesome!

The only negatives that happened were again related to the DJ. On our CD, we had included the song "Fish" by Craig Campbell to be played at some random time during the reception. If you haven't ever heard it, it is a pretty fun song that gets you thinking he's about to say something completely different. Here are the first verse & chorus:

The first time we did it I was scared to death

She snuck out in that cotton dress

Jumped on in and we drove to the lake

Put her hand on my knee and said I can’t wait

I had everything we needed in the bed of my truck

Turns out my baby loves to...

[Chorus:]

Fish, she wants to do it all the time

Early in the morning, in the middle of the night

She’s hooked and now she can’t get enough

Man, that girl sure loves to fish

We thought it would be fun and suits us since my husband did get me into fishing with him. We had made it pretty clear to just mix it in somewhere when people were dancing and having fun. Well, he went right from the father-daughter dance into paying that song, so that is the song that was playing when we cut the cake. And of course nobody was paying any attention because they were focused on us cutting the cake and doing toasts. But, oh well.

Then, later in the reception, the DJ starts paying a lot of hip-hop & R&B music. We had requested current top 40's, country, 80's-90's music. We specifically crossed out and wrong a large NO next to it on the form, and wrote in the comments no rap/R&B/hip-hop music. We also specified that, with few exceptions, about 1/4 of our guests were in their mid-late 30's and the rest were over 60, so play music appropriate for those age groups. I think 50 Cent was playing (with nobody on dance floor) when our wedding coordinator came up to us and said "What is this music? This isn't the type of music you requested, is it?"... we told her it certainly isn't what we would have chosen and she went to yell at DJ again and took care of it. The rest of the music was okay. Except we did request absolutely (in large red letters & highlighted in yellow) no choreographed or line dance type things that are so popular at weddings, like shuffle, electric slide, chicken dance, etc. He did play YMCA, but we didn't get upset because people were actually out there dancing to it and he never tried to pull everyone out onto the dance floor to participate in anything.

So, we weren't exactly thrilled with our DJ, but we took it all in stride, didn't let it upset us at all, and still had fun. It helped that we had an awesome coordinator that handled everything so well.

The 1.5 hours went quickly, but since we had a small group it was okay since we actually were able to talk to everyone during that time. It was sad to see the non-sailing guests go though. And we definitely had a few that said they really wish they would have booked the cruise, after seeing the ship. But, everything with the wedding was so awesome and went so smoothly. I really have to give a lot of credit to Carnival because they really do know how to make it work.

After that, photographer asked if we could do posed photos after the muster drill, so she would have more time, which we were fine with. So, my new husband and I went back to our room to just relax for a few minutes and take in all the excitement of the day. We had about 45 minutes until muster drill. He actually took about a 20 min. nap during that time and I started to unpack some of our stuff. We also had champagne and really yummy chocolate covered strawberries waiting in our room for us.

We stayed in our wedding clothes all day, because we wanted to wear them to dinner that night. So, we got a lot of congratulations at the muster drill and while walking around the ship. After the drill, we met up with our awesome photographer to go our individual posed photos around the ship. I'm out of time for now, so I'll discuss photos further in my next post. :)

Okay, wedding photos...

We had an amazing photographer! Bojana is supposedly one of Carnivals main photographers and gets called to do any big promo shoots they need. Before getting on the ship, our wedding coordinator had said that we hopefully get her, because she really is the best. She has a history as a European model, so a lot of her shots have a modeling quality to them that you don't typically see in wedding photos. So we got some unique photos that look really great.

We were very please with her during the ceremony & reception, but nothing particularly special to note. My sister-in-law did take a lot of photos also and kind of shadowed her at times and she was very kind and didn't mind it. When we met to look over the photos, she even gave my sister-in-law tips on photographing people and best angles to get. Which was great since we did a beach photo shoot with my sister-in-law later in the week.

We met up with her after the muster drill to do the photo shoot. Unfortunately, it was raining outside as our ship was leaving New Orleans, so that really limited our photos. So, we didn't get any photos outside at all. By the time the rain stopped, we were further down the Mississippi and the water is all brown and muddy, and the sky was grey, and it wouldn't make a good background for photos. But, we went all over inside the ship and got some great shots. Some of them required weird positions, some even kind of painful, but we trusted that she was the expert and knew what we was doing, so we obeyed every request without question. For which she was very thankful and said that she loved working with us because some people try to fight her on her requests.

We met with the photographer the next day to look at all the photos. She had all of them printed for the meeting. The posed photos are printed on 8x10 and the candid shots are on 5x7. She also had the photo books assembled, but photos were not permanently attached to pages at that time. We had planned on spending about $2,000 on photos. We had originally thought that the $750 package would be fine, but increased our budget based on reviews from past brides on cruise critic. Luckily, our parents had notified us earlier that day that they also wanted to chip in on photos. Because we had a hard time narrowing it down and ended up buying everything. Husband was so impressed that he ended up tipping her more money as we were looking at them, which I think was crazy since we were about to give her A LOT more money to purchase photos, so adding more to that wasn't needed. We probably could have spent more time to narrow it down if needed though. It probably wasn't a good idea to meet with her at 10pm, because we may have been more patient to spend more time looking through them if it were earlier.

And like others have said, the books really are amazing and really good quality, so we bought those too. Those are very nice to have for showing off to people when you get home, because they are beautiful and a very concise view of the wedding. And they will definitely be looked at in the future. Actually, husband and I made an agreement that if we ever fight, get mad at each other, or get into a rut in our relationship (which is pretty much unavoidable at some point), that we will pull out those books to remind us of how amazing of a day that was. But, thinking back on it, I probably would have skipped the books. They are beautiful and great quality, but they were really expensive. I probably could have assembled similar, although not quite as nice, books for a lot less. Plus, it would have been nice to have included other photos from the day/cruise into the books, so we had a good photo book with ALL our best photos. Especially since we did a beach photo shoot later in the week that resulted in some really great photos. So, I really wish I had one nice book that included both photo shoots. If I hadn't done the other photo shoot, I probably would be a lot happier with the Carnival books, since my biggest disappointment is that I have good photos that they don't include.

So, attached are some of our best photos from Bojana (Carnival Photographer) for the ceremony & reception. I'll also post some of the posed photos. And I will write a separate post describing my beach photo shoot and showing some of those photos.

Here are posed photos from Carnival's photographer.

And more photos.

Wow that is fantastic

Great photos indeed

Live what they did over the dance floor for you

I like also your idea on the books

May your marriage be like a cruise with fair winds and following seas

Greg

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Okay, so the cruise was amazing. We were very lucky and had our parents, siblings, and nieces, & nephew join us on the cruise. Including us there were 14 in our group. We did make sure that their cabins weren't too close to ours though. Since it was our honeymoon afterall, we decided to splurge and get a spa suite for ourselves. Part of the thinking in this was that none of our family would spend the additional money to get rooms on the spa floor. His parents did also book a suite, and actually looked at getting the spa suite right next to us, but we easily talked them out of that one. My family was 1-2 floors below us, on same part of the ship, and his family booked on the other end of the ship. But, even with everyone spread out, it was easy to coordinate and meet up with everyone.

Our cabin was amazing! It was so nice having the extra space of the suite, especially on morning of wedding when we were getting dressed and I had me, 3 bridesmaids, mom, flower girl, and photographer all in the room with me. And vanity area outside bathroom was super useful. On previous cruises I've only had interior cabins, so this was definitely a change. In the future, I would probably be okay with a balcony room, but don't think I could go back to interior room again. Although, I really didn't spend much time on balcony because every time I sat out there the movement of the boat and the water sound would put me to sleep almost immediately. We also had an awesome room steward.

In Cozumel most of our group decided to swim with dolphins at Dolphin Discovery. We booked independently, rather than through Carnival. It was a lot of fun.

In Belize, 7 of us went cave tubing. We booked independently through Butts Up Cave Tubing. Our guide was really great. My mom had recently had foot surgery, and there was some walking involved to get to the tubing area, but they went really slow and helped her wherever needed. I would definitely recommend booking through them for this excursion if interested.

Then at Mahogany Bay, we got all dressed up again and had my sister-in-law do a wedding beach photo shoot. We figured this would be a good location since there is beach really close to port and scenery was supposed to be beautiful there. We got up and off the ship early to try and beat the crowds to the beach. There were some people, but it wasn't too bad at the far end of the beach and most people were pretty accommodating at clearing space for us. But, getting out early was also good because it started getting hot out there. The photos turned out AMAZING. This was definitely one of our best decisions we made. We also did a few photos on ship deck after returning from the beach. I knew my sister-in-law had a professional quality camera and was good at photos, but I wasn't prepared for how good she was. She was really great at setting up the shots and even touched them up on photoshop on her computer before showing them to us. There are definitely some frame worthy shots. So, attached are those photos.

And more...

The rest of the cruise was very relaxing and a really great experience. All of our family had a great vacation and everyone is sold on doing future cruises. And it was really nice seeing our families interact with each other. They all got along really well and after the trip most of my family members are now facebook friends with his family members.

I would definitely recommend the cruise wedding to anyone looking to do a smaller, low key, wedding with minimal planning. You may not have as many options on some things as far as customization, but that was the biggest selling point for me, because I didn't want the stress over picking out every detail or seating charts. Carnival really has it set up where you can book it, fill out a few forms with minimal choices, and just show up and have a great wedding. It was an awesome experience for us that we will never forget.

So, I think that is the end of my wedding review. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. I know that past cruise brides were immensely helpful when I was planning, so I don't mind helping the upcoming brides in any way I can.