Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

Wedding Review With Pictures... Carnival Fascination 6/11/11

Soon2BeMrsI

Recommended Posts

Soon2BeMrsI

Soon2BeMrsI

Posted
Posted

So I promised a review and I am a woman of word! I think the best way to do this is to divide the review into sections. Let me start by giving the facts:

 

Ship: Carnival Fascination

Date: 6/11/11

Wedding Party: Maid of Honor and 3 bridesmaids with a flowergirl, Best man and 3 groomsmen with ring bearer

Number of guests: 38

Number of sailing guests: 17

 

Night before the wedding:

Most of the wedding attendees met at Outback Steakhouse in Jacksonville about 30 minutes from the port, close to where hubby's aunt lives. The service was fairly good, but I think they were a bit overwhelmed with a party of 30. We stayed with my hubby's aunt along with my in laws, his stepsister, her husband and their 3 kids and our 2 kids. She has a pool, so the kids were entertained and she is GREAT with the kiddos. That ran smoothly!

 

Morning before the wedding:

Me, the maid of honor, my daughter AKA the flower girl along with my mother in law and hubby's aunt went and had out hair done at "The Spa and Bartram(sp?) Walk" They did an excellent job and were great with my 6 year old. They had mimosas waiting on us that morning when we arrived at 7:30. We already had out bags packed in our cars, so me, my maid of honor and daughter went straight to the port.

 

Embarkation:

Hubby got there before we did, but they put him in a line for guest parking as they did us, even though he told them at parking that he was the groom. Make sure that you tell the people at the gate that you are with a wedding and are the bride or groom so they can park you accordingly. It took a minute to get that straight. We walked in the door at about 10:05 or so, and the wedding coordinator had already had somebody in my family to see where I was at. There were 3 weddings that day, so we were all set in the VIP section with one of those families as well. They immediately pulled hubby and I aside and started talking over wedding details. They were able to get all of that on straightened out just in time for us to get on the ship. We were on the ship before or right at 11 o'clock.

 

On the ship before the wedding:

The wedding coordinator took my straight to our cabin, and they got the tuxedos and took them down to hubby's cousin's cabin where the buys got ready. I had plenty of time to do my make up and get dressed. They gave every guest a little card with a map of the ship and the exact place and time they needed to meet for the wedding. I'm not positive, but I think that several of my wedding guests went up to the Lido deck and grabbed food with no problem. I didn't pay for them to eat.... oooops.

 

One of our groomsmen didn't show up, so we threw my brother into the role, and the formal shop was able to change the pants out because apparently they were WAY to short for him. It all worked out well though.

 

My two teenage sisters decorated the cake for me and did an EXCELLENT job. I was very proud of them. My maid of honor made our bouquets and boutineers, they looked great.

 

Oh YEAH, I almost forgot. We couldn't get my zipper up all the way on my dress. It got stuck about and inch and a half from the top of the dress, and we tried HARD to get it up. Everyone decided that it just looked like an eyelit(sp?) or something and I ended up going out just like that.

 

The Wedding Ceremony:

The wedding coordinator came down to the room and walked me up to the wedding. She gave me more instructions on the way up and bragged about how well behaved my stepson and daughter were behaving to be so young... 3 and 6. I arrived up there and my hubby was already in Putting on the Ritz waiting. I stood outside and the photographer, Gabriele, was there taking photos of me and my father.

 

My hubby had not seen the dress yet at all until I walked down the isle and it went off without a hitch. The officiant was great, and the wedding was beautiful.

 

After the wedding the photographer took some more pictures, but she was being rushed because they needed the room to go ahead with the next wedding. We were rushed out of the room and down to Diamonds are Forever Disco for the reception.

 

Reception:

They played my songs straight off of the burnt CD with NO problem. Nothing was even said about it.

 

The wedding party walked in to "I'm On a Boat" it was a great and everyone found it humorous. Then we did the cake cutting. Next we did the first dance with my and hubby dancing to "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by David Cook. Then I danced mystepson and my husband danced with my daughter to "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. Before we started the dancing with the kids my daughter started crying because she was overwhelmed, but she said it was a happy cry. She was still crying when they started their dance, so it was a tear jerker for everyone. Several people broke down crying during their dance, somehow I was able to fight back the tears so they I wouldn't mess up my make up.

 

Everyone danced a while and a the photographer took more group pictures that she wasn't able to get after the wedding because of the rush. Then we did the bouquet toss and garter toss. We signed the marriage certificate.

 

It went by VERY fast! VERY, VERY fast! We had a celebrity status for the first day of the cruise with people recognizing us from walking around the ship during the muster drill in our wedding attire.

 

The food was good from what I hear, I didn't have much time to eat anything though. I did have one drink, but several of the guests enjoyed the free bar. They served the wedding cake for dessert at dinner for 2 nights so I did get to eat a full piece of it.

 

Photography:

Okay this was my biggest concern, and it did prove to be a problem.

First of all let me say that the photographer, Gabriele, was GREAT! I had specific pictures that I requested to be taken, and she got all of them. Most of her pictures were great. My problem was more with the way that they ran the photography department and the lack of tack by the manager.

The first time that we met to look at the pictures I took my Dad, Stepmom and Maid of Honor with me, my hubby was not interested in seeing them at all. The first thing she showed me was a photo book that she had made, most the pictures in it were pictures that I had requested to be taken. IMO the photo book didn't even look professional and it was $1200.00. Well, I had no interest in this photo book, but I did want copies of the pictures that were in it. She told me that I couldn't order prints of the photos in the book, and that if I ordered the book alone I wouldn't get a CD of the photos in the book. My dad asked to speak with a manager and he allowed us to order print from the photos in the book. No problem, that was solved.

 

We met again, so that my in laws could see the photos because they were thinking about bumping it up to the next package. Well, while we were sitting there I discovered that the photo prints that I would be taking home for the thousands of dollars that we were spending were glossy prints printed on the same paper that they print the photos that they sale to you that are taking throughout the cruise. They aren't very professional looking at all. There was no editing done to them at all. They were straight from the camera, she said so herself. The printer itself does edit some of the coloring, but when you pay for professional wedding photos they are post processed a lot. The manager wanted to argue with me and said that it was all a matter of opinion. They ended up printing all of them out for me on matte paper, as they should have been to begin with. At any rate, he was rude and kept placing the blame back on me.

 

So, I plan on editing them myself in photoshop and then having them printed by a good printing company. The photographer herself was great though.

 

All things said and done, I would do it again. It was a fairy tale wedding and the 5 days of the cruise/honeymoon just topped it off. We did get on the Newlywed game the last night, too, and it was great. We got celebrity status again, which was pretty cool. Hubby even got a free beer out of it.

 

Here is a link to my Carnival Pictures from the wedding, I'll have more photos later and I will post them as I get them in from people.

 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150213730992019.321069.684577018

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lovepea

lovepea

Posted
Posted

Thanks for writing a wonderful review and showing off your pictures! Your wedding looks fabulous and you can tell people were having a great time.

 

I must say that my most favorite picture of all is the one of you stopping him from going overboard with the life preserver around his neck! OMG I am sitting here laughing at work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Soon2BeMrsI

Soon2BeMrsI

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I was nervous about the pictures, too. The photographer proved to be great, and she took excellent photographs, that in no way was the problem.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about it, because as long as you buy a package at $750.00 and get the CD you will be able to get prints of them wherever you would like, that will be higher quality. There is a website that offers professional quality prints "mpix.com" and they are reasonably priced. A lot of professional photographers use this site to order prints for their clients. It's ridiculous that you should have to reorder photos that you are paying so much for, however.

 

I would just ask them when you go to look at the photos what type of paper they are printed on, and request that they are printed on matte and not glossy paper. I had to cause a big stink about it, but maybe if I had asked about it earlier then it wouldn't have been as much of an issue. The photo manager was Indian, and the cruise manager tried to explain that it was the difference in cultures that was making him seem rude, but whatever. As for the photo books, IF you happen to be on one of the few ships that offers the the photo book, they can take the photos that you would like out of the photo book, BUT again you will have to talk to the manager.

 

I ended up buying the $999.99 package, which was more than we originally could afford. My father and step-mother found some photos that they wanted to buy and ended up bumping it up from the $750.00 package for me. They also purchased 2 extra canvases and my in-laws bought about 4 more photos.

 

After I spoke with the manager the second time about the quality of the prints, he offered to print ALL of my photos in matte and he let me pick out 5 extra 5X7s and 5 extra 8X10s, but this was after MUCH "talking." I was getting pretty angry with the guy because he walked up to the table and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Oh, you have another problem." After that he continued to place all of the blame on me. He said it was my fault that the prints weren't printed on the higher quality paper because I didn't request it and just assumed that it would be printed on the matte paper. I had my step-mom, husband, in-laws, and my husband's aunt sitting there with me and all of us told him that we had never seen wedding photos that weren't printed on matte paper. (Honestly, I've never seen photos from any professional portrait studio that were on glossy paper, and that cheap glossy paper that they print all of the onboard ship photos on.) He just had a bad attitude and acted as though I was wrong for expecting professional service and quality for the same price I would pay a professional photographer.

 

At any rate, like I said before, you should be fine as long as you ask them at the first sitting to have you photos printed on matte paper rather than the glossy. They don't give you the photos until the last day of the cruise, so you don't really have time to complain at that point. Also, don't step down if they tell you that you can't order prints from pictures in the photo book, if there is one. Ask to speak to a manager if it's necessary. It also helps to bring a print out of some of the photos that you would like to make sure that you have taken.

 

I really hope that I didn't scare anyone. I am thinking that maybe I just had a bad experience with this one photo manager, but it is still something that everyone should know about the prints that you receive being less than professional quality. ALSO there is NO post processing done on the photographs without request, just a small amount of color editing that is done by the printer. Anything else you have to specifically request.

 

Also, make sure to tell all of your guests to feel free to take photos. I still haven't gathered all of our guests photos, but I'm sure there are some great ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lipz

Lipz

Posted
Posted

Yeah!!! Another happy cruise bride!

CONGRATULATIONS to you and your hubby.

Your dress is one of the best I've seen for this kind of wedding, it looks so light, airy and easy to party in. Loved your pictures, especially the one of you guys with the bridge behind you.

 

Thanks for sharing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bahamian Bride

Bahamian Bride

Posted
Posted

Crazy! I was on your boat. I missed you guys in attire, but I definitely witnessed the newlywed game! My group was cracking up that your Hubby kept getting his chair moved. Congratulations!

 

We actually decided on that boat that we should do a cruise wedding, so I'm in the midst of planning now. So your review is amazingly helpful! Especially since I was on your boat!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
canucme_cruisin

canucme_cruisin

Posted
Posted

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Great review. Sorry you had to go through all that with the pics, but sounds like you came out with great pics (I like matte better too).

 

Wasn't the Newlywed game fun?? We had a BALL doing it, but ours was the middle of the cruise so it was on TV ALL THE TIME the rest of the cruise, I got tired of seeing it, so I didn't buy the DVD. Did you guys win?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 5 weeks later...
lisa.andrews5

lisa.andrews5

Posted
Posted

I am getting married aboard the Carnival Fascination on 9/3/11 (34 days). I appreciate your review and pictures, it has been very helpful. When did they take the majority of your photos? After the reception? I have heard that they try to pull you out of the reception in order to take the photos. Any other advice you can give me?? And also - do you think it is possible at all for the bride and groom not to see each other the day of?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
B&BE

B&BE

Posted
Posted

Aqua-11...We didn't pick a package before our wedding on the Freedom in December. The photographer assigned to us was incredible. He took over 500 pictures (I have the CD of all of them). One thing you need to know is the photographer does not get paid from Carnival to take the pictures, he works off commission only, and edits and prints them in his free time. With that being said, you can negotiate the "printed" prices with him. He dropped our price by almost $1,000 because we looked interested by told him we couldn't spend that much money. He also threw in 2 16x20 canvas', some wallets, and a couple of other things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 10 months later...
octoberbride2012

octoberbride2012

Posted
Posted
So I promised a review and I am a woman of word! I think the best way to do this is to divide the review into sections. Let me start by giving the facts:

 

Ship: Carnival Fascination

Date: 6/11/11

Wedding Party: Maid of Honor and 3 bridesmaids with a flowergirl, Best man and 3 groomsmen with ring bearer

Number of guests: 38

Number of sailing guests: 17

 

Night before the wedding:

Most of the wedding attendees met at Outback Steakhouse in Jacksonville about 30 minutes from the port, close to where hubby's aunt lives. The service was fairly good, but I think they were a bit overwhelmed with a party of 30. We stayed with my hubby's aunt along with my in laws, his stepsister, her husband and their 3 kids and our 2 kids. She has a pool, so the kids were entertained and she is GREAT with the kiddos. That ran smoothly!

 

Morning before the wedding:

Me, the maid of honor, my daughter AKA the flower girl along with my mother in law and hubby's aunt went and had out hair done at "The Spa and Bartram(sp?) Walk" They did an excellent job and were great with my 6 year old. They had mimosas waiting on us that morning when we arrived at 7:30. We already had out bags packed in our cars, so me, my maid of honor and daughter went straight to the port.

 

Embarkation:

Hubby got there before we did, but they put him in a line for guest parking as they did us, even though he told them at parking that he was the groom. Make sure that you tell the people at the gate that you are with a wedding and are the bride or groom so they can park you accordingly. It took a minute to get that straight. We walked in the door at about 10:05 or so, and the wedding coordinator had already had somebody in my family to see where I was at. There were 3 weddings that day, so we were all set in the VIP section with one of those families as well. They immediately pulled hubby and I aside and started talking over wedding details. They were able to get all of that on straightened out just in time for us to get on the ship. We were on the ship before or right at 11 o'clock.

 

On the ship before the wedding:

The wedding coordinator took my straight to our cabin, and they got the tuxedos and took them down to hubby's cousin's cabin where the buys got ready. I had plenty of time to do my make up and get dressed. They gave every guest a little card with a map of the ship and the exact place and time they needed to meet for the wedding. I'm not positive, but I think that several of my wedding guests went up to the Lido deck and grabbed food with no problem. I didn't pay for them to eat.... oooops.

 

One of our groomsmen didn't show up, so we threw my brother into the role, and the formal shop was able to change the pants out because apparently they were WAY to short for him. It all worked out well though.

 

My two teenage sisters decorated the cake for me and did an EXCELLENT job. I was very proud of them. My maid of honor made our bouquets and boutineers, they looked great.

 

Oh YEAH, I almost forgot. We couldn't get my zipper up all the way on my dress. It got stuck about and inch and a half from the top of the dress, and we tried HARD to get it up. Everyone decided that it just looked like an eyelit(sp?) or something and I ended up going out just like that.

 

The Wedding Ceremony:

The wedding coordinator came down to the room and walked me up to the wedding. She gave me more instructions on the way up and bragged about how well behaved my stepson and daughter were behaving to be so young... 3 and 6. I arrived up there and my hubby was already in Putting on the Ritz waiting. I stood outside and the photographer, Gabriele, was there taking photos of me and my father.

 

My hubby had not seen the dress yet at all until I walked down the isle and it went off without a hitch. The officiant was great, and the wedding was beautiful.

 

After the wedding the photographer took some more pictures, but she was being rushed because they needed the room to go ahead with the next wedding. We were rushed out of the room and down to Diamonds are Forever Disco for the reception.

 

Reception:

They played my songs straight off of the burnt CD with NO problem. Nothing was even said about it.

 

The wedding party walked in to "I'm On a Boat" it was a great and everyone found it humorous. Then we did the cake cutting. Next we did the first dance with my and hubby dancing to "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by David Cook. Then I danced mystepson and my husband danced with my daughter to "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. Before we started the dancing with the kids my daughter started crying because she was overwhelmed, but she said it was a happy cry. She was still crying when they started their dance, so it was a tear jerker for everyone. Several people broke down crying during their dance, somehow I was able to fight back the tears so they I wouldn't mess up my make up.

 

Everyone danced a while and a the photographer took more group pictures that she wasn't able to get after the wedding because of the rush. Then we did the bouquet toss and garter toss. We signed the marriage certificate.

 

It went by VERY fast! VERY, VERY fast! We had a celebrity status for the first day of the cruise with people recognizing us from walking around the ship during the muster drill in our wedding attire.

 

The food was good from what I hear, I didn't have much time to eat anything though. I did have one drink, but several of the guests enjoyed the free bar. They served the wedding cake for dessert at dinner for 2 nights so I did get to eat a full piece of it.

 

Photography:

Okay this was my biggest concern, and it did prove to be a problem.

First of all let me say that the photographer, Gabriele, was GREAT! I had specific pictures that I requested to be taken, and she got all of them. Most of her pictures were great. My problem was more with the way that they ran the photography department and the lack of tack by the manager.

The first time that we met to look at the pictures I took my Dad, Stepmom and Maid of Honor with me, my hubby was not interested in seeing them at all. The first thing she showed me was a photo book that she had made, most the pictures in it were pictures that I had requested to be taken. IMO the photo book didn't even look professional and it was $1200.00. Well, I had no interest in this photo book, but I did want copies of the pictures that were in it. She told me that I couldn't order prints of the photos in the book, and that if I ordered the book alone I wouldn't get a CD of the photos in the book. My dad asked to speak with a manager and he allowed us to order print from the photos in the book. No problem, that was solved.

 

We met again, so that my in laws could see the photos because they were thinking about bumping it up to the next package. Well, while we were sitting there I discovered that the photo prints that I would be taking home for the thousands of dollars that we were spending were glossy prints printed on the same paper that they print the photos that they sale to you that are taking throughout the cruise. They aren't very professional looking at all. There was no editing done to them at all. They were straight from the camera, she said so herself. The printer itself does edit some of the coloring, but when you pay for professional wedding photos they are post processed a lot. The manager wanted to argue with me and said that it was all a matter of opinion. They ended up printing all of them out for me on matte paper, as they should have been to begin with. At any rate, he was rude and kept placing the blame back on me.

 

So, I plan on editing them myself in photoshop and then having them printed by a good printing company. The photographer herself was great though.

 

All things said and done, I would do it again. It was a fairy tale wedding and the 5 days of the cruise/honeymoon just topped it off. We did get on the Newlywed game the last night, too, and it was great. We got celebrity status again, which was pretty cool. Hubby even got a free beer out of it.

 

Here is a link to my Carnival Pictures from the wedding, I'll have more photos later and I will post them as I get them in from people.

 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150213730992019.321069.684577018

 

i am getting married on the fascination on October 27. i'm been looking for pictures of the lounges everywhere and can't find any! i would love to see what the diamonds are forever lounge look like, but the link to your pictures says it is unavailable now :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 5 weeks later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • ANNOUNCEMENT: Set Sail on Sun Princess®
      • Hurricane Zone 2024
      • Cruise Insurance Q&A w/ Steve Dasseos of Tripinsurancestore.com June 2024
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...