Celebrity (Solstice Class) Wedding Experience?

[Evajadyn]

Good afternoon everyone! I am having an at sea (Tie the Knot at Sea) wedding in December 2015. I have been in regular conversation with Courtney from the Wedding Experience (she has been nothing but amazing, it is the POC at the ship who doesn't bother to answer messages promptly).

I would like to hear about other brides planning a wedding on board the Celebrity Solstice class of ships (Reflection, for us). We are doing a restaurant "buy out" as well as a drink package for our guests. The plan is to have the wedding at the Sky Observation Lounge (I am VERY persistent and heard A LOT of "I am not sure you can do this...or that". )

I would LOVE to see any wedding pictures taken on the Celebrity. I see a lot of people having weddings on Royal Caribbean (their wedding customer service department was lacking customer service and had A LOT of excuses and exceptions). Carnival weddings are just not for me.

I would to hear about your experiences; whether you have had a wedding on Celebrity of witnessed a wedding on a Celebrity cruise in the recent (last 4 to 5 years) past. I look forward to your ideas, reviews....

[miched]

I have read that many will have their reception on board but will get married before boarding because of the cost of the wedding license to have it on board. I think the cost was over $750 for the license and then I think there were other issues about it being accepted or recognized.

 

Not sure but something to check into.

 

Cruise on 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

[phoenix_dream]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. I confess on my 25+ Celebrity cruises I have never seen one wedding, although I'm sure there have been some. I don't know if you are an experienced cruiser or not? I only mention this as I don't want to offend you with details you may already know. My first thought when I read your post was boy is she brave! What if the planners mess up something? My second thought was oh boy, a wedding in December. Please make sure your important guests plan to reach the port at least a day or two prior if they are flying. I went on a cruise for my honeymoon (more years ago than I want to admit). We flew out the morning of our cruise, the day after our wedding. We had a one-stop flight, got to the airport and our flight was cancelled due to a winter storm at our stop. Horror of horrors!! That was back when there were more options and by pleading honeymoon we got put on a non-stop and reached our destination after all. Perhaps you are an experienced cruiser and already know this - if not I urge you to consider this detail in planning. Best of luck to you!

[miched]

Read post number 9 in this thread

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1923393&highlight=wedding+license

 

I think there is also another section in Cruise Critic forums for weddings and honeymoons.

 

 

Cruise on 🌊🚢🚢🌅

[phoenix_dream]

One more point to consider (again, forgive me if you are an experienced cruiser and already know this). Even if you don't want to get married on land anywhere, you may want to consider holding the ceremony while docked. My worst sailing ever was out of Florida to the western Caribbean - seas were up to 30' at times. I have also encountered seas up to 20' on eastern Caribbean routes. Not only was I very seasick, but so was half the crew. I cannot imagine holding a wedding in that type of circumstance, especially if I were the bride or groom. Other times the seas have been smooth as glass. Just something to consider in the timing of the wedding IMHO.

[surebeatssailing]

We were on a Carribean cruise & one of our port stops was Key West where a guest had planned her wedding on the beach. The bridal party was on the ship but many guests were flying/driving to Key West for the beach wedding. Due to rough seas we did not go to Key West. It was several more days before arrangements were made for the wedding to take place at one of our last port days. A little chaotic to say the least but the wedding finally took place !

[phoenix_dream]

We were on a Carribean cruise & one of our port stops was Key West where a guest had planned her wedding on the beach. The bridal party was on the ship but many guests were flying/driving to Key West for the beach wedding. Due to rough seas we did not go to Key West. It was several more days before arrangements were made for the wedding to take place at one of our last port days. A little chaotic to say the least but the wedding finally took place !

 

Another example of why I cringe when I hear people talk about weddings at sea, particularly if they are planning for more than just a couple people. The weddings may go off beautifully, with everything going perfectly as planned. But there are so many, many more possible issues with a ship wedding, particularly a larger one. At every wedding something goes wrong (I try to remind very nervous brides that the thing that goes wrong is one of the things that they will look back at fondly and laugh when they are celebrating their 25th anniversary) but at sea there are so many more possibilities to juggle. I am sure it is absolutely beautiful when all goes well. I guess I am just not that big of a risk taker myself:)

[SCGirl3211]

Three or four years ago we attended a wedding held on the Solstice. We had chatted with the couple through our roll call over several months prior to the cruise and went on several excursions as a large group also. We were very excited when we received an invitation to the wedding onboard. The ceremony was held in Michael's Club and was set up with rows of chairs like a land-based outdoor ceremony would have been. The captain performed the ceremony and there were light snacks and champagne available. There was a beautiful wedding cake prepared by the ship staff. It was a lovely ceremony. The photos of the couple taken by the ship's staff were displayed later in the photo area and they were fabulous!! Best of luck with your wedding and enjoy every minute.

[Sloop-JohnB]

On our first Celebrity Cruise (Solstice 2012) there were several Weddings... Some ashore while in port and at least 2 that I know of on the ship.

 

One of the ship ones happened on the lawn... How cool is that ?

 

We had run into the FOB the day before in the Elevator... He was very happy for his DD we saw him later in the cruise and we asked how it had all gone. He said great, BUT the couple were disappointed cause they had paid extra for the Wedding Package where they would be married by the Captain... And in the end he was a no show... Something came up... He did send his regrets... And a token apology (Bottle of Wine or Specialty Dinner... I forget). Do recall that Dad said the Ceremony was done by another Officer commissioned to take Oaths... But it just wasn't the same for the couple.

 

As others have said, Weddings at Sea or In Port can have issues... Especially so if the Port is cancelled or itinerary changes (a real risk)... With the Wedding industry there usually aren't refunds given.

 

Personally, I'd marry before getting on the ship... And have the cruise as the honeymoon. Less stress that way (and more privacy). Cruises make for excellent honeymoons, cruise lines really step it up for Newlyweds... After all it is human nature everyone wants to be happy for a couple so in love.

 

Lol, lots of nice perks to be gained.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Cheers!

Edited July 31, 2014 by Sloop-JohnB

[EPD]

Some where on here is a link to the pictures from our wedding (lost in the wedding forum section I am sure) but it was a different class of ship and its been a while now.

 

I was married on board the Celebrity Infinity all the way back in 2004. We are doing a cruise this fall on the Reflection to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. We found the Wedding Planning company (at that time "A Wedding For You") that Celebrity uses was quite responsive but a bit unorganized once the actual day came, the planner and her assistance arrived late to the port. We were married in the port in Vancouver the day the ship was departing. We had 60 people come on board for the ceremony/luncheon and had 25 sail to Alaska with us. The ceremony was in the Constellation Lounge (we had no choice in the ceremony venue, we just arrived on the ship and this was where it was). They got me on-board and had just my room ready so that I could get into my dress. We had to hunt a bit for the flowers but those were eventually found and they were beautiful. Celebrity's ship photographer took tons of amazing pictures and we bought them all as well as the CDs. We did a formal sit-down lunch in the MDR which was multi-courses and wonderful. We did the cake cutting right after lunch, the cake came with a cake-topper from the kitchen which was possibly the ugliest thing I had ever seen, we still laugh about it today. Given it was the day the ship left port it was pretty amazing what they managed to get together for us. We ended up in the cruise review video at the end a few times and really enjoyed the wedding-moon cruise.

 

My only advice would be that there was a lot of stuff that I just had to not worry about and just roll with the day. Some things ran late, some things felt a bit unorganized and some parts were just amazing.

[Allieoop1014]

Hello,

How did the onboard weddings go for Celebrity? So far working with the Wedding Experience has been an absolute nightmare of bad organization for me. TERRIBLE COMPANY and Celebrity's "wedding department" is pretty terrible as well.

[SCWS&Dolphins]

Getting married November 23, 2015 on a Caribbean cruise- Equinox and I'm having a hard time with The Wedding Experience. My fiancé and I were both in the Navy soinitially we were going to have an at sea (married by the Skipper) however thanks to Apostilles from Montana getting lost in the mail, we did not make the deadline for submitting all the license documents. Thank goodness we were able to swap our deposit to a shoreside wedding in St. Thomas. However, we were out $400 in fees from all the certified paperwork needed to get married under the Maltese flag. DO NOT GO THIS ROUTE! The fee is $750 when a license in Malta is roughly $120. Now that we've swapped over to a shoreside wedding and the wedding is under 2 weeks away, we still don't have a timeline. I get emails from the Wedding Experience telling me of additional fees "oh, I forgot to mention that the Minister requires a $75 waiting fee) but no time line. I told them exactly what I wanted- go to courthouse get license, go back to ship and get ready, then travel in separate vehicles (me and BM and my Fiancé and his BM) to the ceremony location so there's some element of surprise but my planner can't seem to make that work or give me a timeline. We also asked if we could go to a more private location (as offered in their wedding brochure) and we were told we'd have to call the locations directly and schedule the ceremony and pay their fees. Sure I understand there was going to be an additional fee but for us to call and coordinate directly - isn't that what we are paying the Wedding Exoerience to do? My "experience" with them has not been good. They overcharge for EVERYTHING! On a side note, if you compare the NauticAl nuptials to the Renewal of vows by the Captain, the renewal is much cheaper and you get more!!! One example - get a signed photo with the Captian in addition to the 1 hour photographer. You don't get this with the NauticAl nuptials. Is anyone else having the same issues? I'm not the first to complain about the WE and I really wish Celebrity would not use them anymore!

[helen haywood]

The OP has never come back to this thread or Cruise Critic (in terms of posting) since her original post.

[Allieoop1014]

Whew do I have a bunch to say about The Wedding Experience. What a crap company.

When I first began planning the wedding, I did what every young person does in order to research an option. I went to You Tube to get a better idea of what it would be like. The only video of a Celebrity wedding on Youtube was a poorly filmed homemade video of a ceremony that was held in a brightly lit area of the ship where the captain has to clarify the names of the couple getting married and a loud beeping throughout the entire video. There were barely any images on google and very few examples to go off of.

While the video was extremely disappointing, I looked at the Celebrity website to find out more, knowing that a cruise ship wedding could be absolutely beautiful if done correctly. I saw that an entire PDF could be downloaded off of the website telling us all about the different kinds of ceremony’s that we could have and all of the additions that we could make. Too bad the bulk of the information in the PDF was incorrect. I see now that the PDF has been updated a bit. Unfortunately, I was the lucky Bride who got to spend the same amount of money for an outdated brochure and a poor planning team. I decided that an At Sea wedding would be fantastic. I purchased the Nautical Nuptials package for $2,500.00. We knew that we could not legally be married on the ship due to the close proximity of the ship to land during the Alaskan Cruise, but the symbolic ceremony would be fantastic and no one would ever have to know! (By the way, I received a “Vow Renewal” certificate at the end of the ceremony instead of the “Symbolic Ceremony” package that we had purchased.)

For the past year and a half I have attempted to work with “The Wedding Experience”, the third party company that Celebrity has decided to have their couples work with prior to the cruise/wedding in order to help with planning. While we were paying for a Celebrity Cruise wedding, “The Wedding Experience” is a company that works with all cruise lines in order to plan weddings and the quality of service is absolutely terrible. I can’t express in words what a terrible company and experience it has been working with “The Wedding Experience.” You have to really push them to send you the paperwork to finalize any details. I came to them as an excited Bride wanting to spend money on decorations, details and to customize the day to the best of my ability. I had never been on the Celebrity Solstice and have never been married so a bit of help would have been welcomed. They provided absolutely no pictures or videos of what to expect. Google images and blogs were pretty much the only way I was able to learn what the wedding would be like. I had no idea where we could get married on the ship, and they didn’t either, so decorating was out of the question. They continued to direct me to their website which constantly crashes and has little to no information about anything Celebrity-related. When I asked about different cake upgrades that could be made, they told me to send pictures and they could check and give me a quote…when I asked about the different locations on the ship that we could be married, they said they would get back to me.

I began working with a woman at “The Wedding Experience” and she was not helpful at all. She would return emails and forward messages to the cruise to ask questions, but as for any creative suggestions or attempting to sell me any upgrades (Which I was BEGGING for), she was a waste of time. She even went so far as to quote me a price, $2,000.00, to rent out The Murano for 2 hours for our reception, and then go back on it several months later, attempting to charge me more. Thankfully I had an idea from the beginning that this was going to be a terrible, sketchy and unorganized experience and kept all of my communication and was able to talk her into keeping her word. After working with her for a year and a half, she was fired/quit about a month before our wedding. Another woman began helping me. Instead of going through all of my past emails, she expected me to go through all of the details that the other lady and I had discussed. I took my own personal time and created a PDF of all of our conversations and agreements for her to go over since she was incapable of briefing herself, or maybe the other chick just hadn’t left anything for her to go over. She failed to go over the information that I had sent, because hours later decided to email me, pushing the current price of the restaurant-buy out instead of looking through our emails and seeing that the last chick had quoted me $2,000.00. The important information that the last lady had decided to leave out was that we also had an additional charge of $1,200.00 just for alcohol at the restaurant buy-out. (Even if ALL of our guests had unlimited drink packages) Just to clarify, our ticket for the cruise was $3,000. The Nautical Nuptials package is $2,500. The Restaurant Buy out was $2,000.00 + $1,200.00 Alcohol package. We also brought 34 additional guests on board. I expect a bit more attention from “The Wedding Experience” when investing the amount of money that we did, and I can imagine that Celebrity Cruises would want this company to treat their guests with more respect as well. When the cruise was almost over, I actually had to call and remind our wedding coordinator onboard that they had not yet charged us the $1,200.00 because they had forgotten.

I had begged and begged for priority boarding since I would be carrying my dress on as well as many wedding decorations and finally was told that I was allowed to board at 10:30 AM. The boarding experience began with us being approached by one of the Celebrity employees on our way to check in after going through security. She asked where we were heading and to see our tickets and I mentioned to her that we had priority boarding because we were getting married on the ship. She huffed and pointed at the line to check in and made a snotty remark to the group of Celebrity employees about how “everyone thinks they have priority boarding.” Thankfully we were on cloud nine because we were getting married the next day on the ship and didn’t allow the hateful remark to ruin our vacation or vibe. There is no way she could have known how I had been treated by the Wedding Experience or Celebrity for the past few months while planning the wedding, but the nonchalant and disrespectful nature towards customers was beginning to become a trend.

Once I did get on the ship, little did I know that I would be carrying my dress around until 2:00 PM when we were allowed into our stateroom. Did anyone ask if I wanted to set the giant dress down behind the desk until our stateroom was finished? No. Did anyone tell me that we wouldn’t be allowed into our stateroom for several hours? No. Once our stateroom was clean, I began to put together tote bags that I had made for each guest’s stateroom. The tote’s included a brochure that said the time and place of the wedding, 11:30AM the next day at the Tuscan Grill and the reception at 12:00PM at the Murano. I asked our wedding coordinator if we could get these out to the staterooms as soon as possible because the guests knew that we would be married on the 5th but had no idea what time or where since I didn’t know either until a week before we sailed! I wake up the morning of our wedding on the 5th in a panic because NO ONE HAD RECEIVED THEIR TOTE BAGS. So I have 34 guests who have purchased tickets to a cruise wedding and they have no idea what time or where the wedding is. What a great way to start a wedding day! One of our guests, not one of the staff, stepped up and called each stateroom to let them know of the time and place of the wedding.

I then went to the Canyon Ranch Spa to get my hair done. I was able to pay $50 to have my makeup done….with my own makeup……very unprofessional way of setting things up….but I can’t praise Mario enough for making me feel beautiful the day of my wedding, even if it was with my own makeup. Mario even tried to order mimosa’s for myself and my bridal party while we were getting our hair done but unfortunately no one ever came! What a shock!

I was told by the Wedding Experience that if I had certain songs in mind that I wanted to play for the ceremony/processional/recessional that I would need to purchase sheet music and email it ahead of time as well as bring copies onboard. When I met with the event coordinator once we got onto the ship, I asked her if I could meet with the acoustic guitarist before the wedding so that I could hear the renditions that he was playing for the songs. I could tell that she thought I was being ridiculous but after my experience thus far with planning with The Wedding Experience and Celebrity, I’ve learned better safe than sorry. While I was touring the Murano, I turned around to a man awkwardly standing behind me. I introduced myself and he said that he was the guitarist that “he guesses I wanted to meet and make sure he could play.” I explained to him that it was nothing personal I was just curious if he had received the sheet music and wanted to be clear as to what part of each song that he would be playing. He said that he was mostly a singer but would try his best and that he doesn’t read sheet music and he wasn’t familiar with the Tom Petty song that I had chosen so he wouldn’t be able to play that unless I had it on my iphone because he learned by ear. He had a terrible attitude, made it sound like he was doing me a huge favor, and clarified many times that he “doesn’t do stuff like this” and that “he’ll do his best”. Not exactly reassuring, but there was no backing out at that point!

The event coordinator herself was actually very nice and made sure that the event itself went beautifully. The ceremony location and reception location were set up beautifully. After asking for an example of the type of ceremony that would be held from The Wedding Experience, they provided me with a copy of the vows that are used. I wanted to talk to the Wedding coordinator about the vows because I wanted to make sure that the Captain knew our names before starting the ceremony. (On youtube, the captain had to clarify the couple’s name DURING the ceremony.) She mentioned that she had never seen those vows before and that they were completely different from the vows that they usually used. She provided me with the vows that the captain was familiar with, and they were excellent! But yet again, another weird mishap from The Wedding Experience of incorrect information being given!

The actual ceremony actually went pretty well. The captain was on time, the ceremony was set up beautifully and the reception at the Murano was excellent. (The captain remembered our names!) The photographer was terrible. Just asked your guests to take pictures. We received an hour of photography with our package and I’m so happy that we stressed to our guests to take as many pictures as possible because as I expected, the pictures were terrible. Our photographer wanted $500.00 for 15 photos. The photos that were taken were maybe worth $50.00. We walked away from the deal happy that we hadn’t wasted our onboard credit on terrible photography and trusted that the few Iphone pictures we received would be much higher quality, which they were. I had attempted to email the photography services ahead of time to pay for and coordinate a wedding package and was continually told to “just come to the photo desk when I arrived on the ship.”

After a year and a half of planning all I wanted to do was start enjoying my vacation and socialize with my family and friends that had come on the boat with me to celebrate our wedding. Instead I was running around tying up loose ends.

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s do a quick breakdown:

$50,000- 36 Guests who came on the cruise for my wedding

Nautical Nuptials- $2,500.00

Restaurant Buy Out- $2,000.00

Alcohol Package- $1,200.00

 

For almost $60,000, we received a thrown together wedding where we were both treated as if we were an annoyance and that even an ounce of planning was going to be bothersome both for the ship and for “The Wedding Experience.” I continuously made complaints throughout the planning process both to Celebrity as well as directly to The Wedding Experience.

If I was the owner of Celebrity Cruises, I would want to know that the ball is being dropped in a growing, multi-million dollar industry that I believe could be extremely successful. If I was in charge of Celebrity Cruises Entertainment and Events, I would get rid of “The Wedding Experience” entirely and make my own wedding planning team through Celebrity directly. In fact, with the experience that I’ve had with planning my own wedding as well as several of my friends weddings I would love to be a part of that team! I believe that Celebrity is a good company and with the correct team, could truly “attend to every detail so you can concentrate on the only thing that matters – each other” as advertised.

 

Breakdown:

-Youtube videos and advertisement of Celebrity cruise ship weddings are lame and need to be updated

-PDF on the Celebrity website about weddings was 75% innaccurate and false advertising

-Received a “vow renewal” certificate at the end of the ceremony instead of the “Symbolic Ceremony” package that we had purchased.

-The Wedding Experience is a terrible, unorganized company who doesn’t put any type of additional care of effort into helping one plan their wedding. They work with all cruise lines so you are paying for a Celebrity wedding and receiving a Carnival experience. Provided inaccurate price quotes and left out large charges until last minute before informing us.

-Musician was a jerk on the Solstice. I was told by the Wedding Experience to purchase and print out sheet music. I emailed the sheet music ahead of time to make sure that the musician was familiar with the selections. The acoustic guitarist had major attitude about meeting me the day before the wedding to hear him play. He also was not familiar with some of the music I had suggested and didn’t read sheet music so that he could learn….seems irritated that he was even having to do this.

-Wedding Coordinator on board didn’t deliver tote bags with information about the time and place of the wedding until it was too late

-Celebrity doesn’t have any makeup services on the boat? Step it up!!

[MonaCK]

... but your $60000 includes the cruise for the week, am I correct...?

[Allieoop1014]

Yeah! The $50,000 sum came from the ticket prices of all of the guests and income brought to the cruise ship by my wedding group. Just pointing out that it's a ton of money to be spending for The Wedding Expperience be such a crap company. You spend that much money on a wedding anywhere else and you're getting pretty awesome service and a team of individuals who appreciate the business.

[MonaCK]

Yeah! The $50,000 sum came from the ticket prices of all of the guests and income brought to the cruise ship by my wedding group. Just pointing out that it's a ton of money to be spending for The Wedding Expperience be such a crap company. You spend that much money on a wedding anywhere else and you're getting pretty awesome service and a team of individuals who appreciate the business.

 

I'm currently working with Wedding Experience now - so far they have been very responsive. hopefully my experience will be better than yours (I am getting married on the Celebrity Summit while in port in Bayonne on May 8th of next year). So far, I have about 58 people booked to go with us on cruise as well. I will let you know how things go.

[Allieoop1014]

Fun! Honestly the wedding itself actually went well, its the communication between the Wedding Experience and the ship that really stinks. I've heard so many better things about having your wedding at a port instead of onboard. Make sure to save your emails! If you're renting out one of the restaurants onboard especially. I was really scared about hair and makeup because you're not able to do a trial or anything but they really were awesome! I also brought a lot of stuff on board with me that I had bought myself because The Wedding Experience's pricing was so ridiculous. They make it sound like getting stuff onboard is going to be really hard but its not.

[MonaCK]

Fun! Honestly the wedding itself actually went well, its the communication between the Wedding Experience and the ship that really stinks. I've heard so many better things about having your wedding at a port instead of onboard. Make sure to save your emails! If you're renting out one of the restaurants onboard especially. I was really scared about hair and makeup because you're not able to do a trial or anything but they really were awesome! I also brought a lot of stuff on board with me that I had bought myself because The Wedding Experience's pricing was so ridiculous. They make it sound like getting stuff onboard is going to be really hard but its not.

 

I'm already planning on doing that. Having it at a home port helps, because we are not limited in the amount of luggage we will have, and we will have helpers who are not sailing with us bring off stuff when they leave so we are not stuck with it all week. One thing we are doing is bringing our own chuppah (marriage canapy). Wedding Experience quoted us $3000 for that. No thank you. ;)

 

If you don't mind me asking, what stuff did you end up bringing on yourself?

[Allieoop1014]

OMG good idea! Yeah I wanted to get married on the lawn at the top of the ship and once they told me about the $3000 charge AND the fact that they wouldn't refund our money if it rained? Yeah...no thanks! Good Idea tho! I brought my own 'flowers' which I ordered from Eco Flower. They are actually flowers made out of recycled materials since I couldn't bring real flowers onto the ship. I also brought tote bags onto the ship with brochures that detailed all of the people that were on the ship and provided room numbers so everyone could chit chat. I had binoculars, chapsticks, sets of cards, and some other swag in the tote bags. I also brought "celebration wands" since we were told we couldn't throw rice or blow bubbles. We brought our own programs that slipped onto the celebration wands. I also made little place settings with pictures of the guests on corks to show where they should sit in the restaurant. I've included some pictures to show some of the items that we brought!

[justcrusn]

We were married on reflection.

We chose to have the ceremony on departure day, in Miami, and the guests left the ship afterwards, and we stayed onboard for a honeymoon TA to Italy.

Due to fickle weather in Miami in April, we scheduled it for indoors.

 

IF, you are a type A "control freak" kind of person, this may not be for you.

Many details will be ambiguous until the ceremony. Ours was held in the sky lounge, but we weren't guaranteed that. We hoped for it, but we're only promised "a lounge" on the ship.

Even though the entrance was closed with plainly visible signage, there were constantly people crashing the wedding, because, apparently, the signs could not have meant THEM....

 

All things considered, it was a beautiful venue with a great view of the skyline of Miami, and the staff was awesome. I would do it again in a heartbeat.