Review of my wedding on the allure of the seas

[royalcaribbeangirl]

Hello all,

 

First I want to apologize for any mispelling, I will try to make this as short and informative as possible.

 

I recently got married at sea on the allure of the seas RCCL on august 3, and the wedding was on august 5. I began planning my wedding 1 year and 5 months ago! so don't think it is to early to start planning yours, it will come really fast and believe me there is too much to plan and do. I found cruise critic around that time and began reading many boards. At first i was scared like everyone else is. We got engaged on new years 2012 and were undecided on where we wanted our wedding to be. When i started looking at banquet hall prices in miami florida, they were crazy!!!!! then we said we needed to do a destination wedding, since our family is way too big, to pay for a banquet hall for 4 hours. I wasn't planning on spending more then 10,000 for EVERYTHING! on my wedding. we thought dominican republic and then i got scared since i had no idea how it will work over there. then I decided on doing it on a cruise. I have traveled with any other cruise line then RCCL and this was my 5th cruise. I knew they had great service, a little more expansive then other cruise lines, but it was a beautiful venue. The year before we had traveled on the oasis so we had an idea of how the cruise looked, even though we never saw the chapel on the oasis.

 

Then the planning began! (or the nightmare, whatever you want to call it, for me it was more like a nightmare) YES! everyone on this website was right! the communication and customer service prior boarding the cruise is horrible!!! I created a group with RCCL in february 2013 with the group department. This was where everyone had to call to reserve their room and make payments. They require a $500 down payment per room, and everyone has a year to pay it off. Per every 8 rooms that are reserved in your group they give you a credit in which you could use to pay off your cabin. We got $1700 in credit and that helped pay off our room, since we had a balcony ocean view. Most of our guest paid the down payment and a month before paid the entire reservation. This is when the first problem came in, you don't really know how many people are going until everyone has that paid off, people kept canceling, reserving, changing rooms and it was a disaster! Well we did have 54 guest in total, i guess this won't happen if you have a smaller group. This is why the wedding department doesn't do final calls until 45-30 days before departing. But getting wedding favors, have a budget you had to stay under for the wedding was a mission to calculate since you don't really know how many people in total you will have.

 

A year before I called royal romance, the number they have on the RCCL website and yes they put you on hold for hours. I reserved and paid for the romance at sea package. We were going to get the marriage liscence from bahamas and actually sign all the papers at sea. It was $4000 for that package. Later in that year, my husband started the Florida Highway Patrol academy to become a state trooper. They sponsered him, with the condition that they will locate him anywhere in florida. With our luck we got located in Pensacola Florida, which is 12 hours from Miami. At that moment we decided to get married at court, which we did, and with this a change in our wedding package will occur. I looked at the contract and it says they won't refund the marriage liscense fee from bahamas, and it was almost $800. Regardless we decided to do a symbolic wedding at sea which saved us almost $3000. Ofcourse it took forever for them to refund the money, but after calling everyday, it finally appeared in my account.

 

I ordered my flowers from angels accents, after looking at pictures from another bride on the boards. You could google it and it will appear. At first I was having 4 bridesmaids, and I ordered all the flowers, including mine, the grooms man, my mothers corsage, and the bridesmaids. At the end the 4th bridesmaid couldn't go, they didn't refund the money for that one, so I had one set extra of everything. It was around $600 for all the flowers, and they were beautiful! They had great service, and I was a little scare at first, but they answered back to all my emails within 24 hours, and everything arrived on time. If you want to order from them I suggest you do it ahead of time, beacause they have a lot of clients.

 

My dress I got it almost 8 months before the wedding. I got it at coral gables bridals in miracle mile miami. My last fitting was in february 2014, so i couldn't loose or gain weight since then. My mom paid for my dress, and it was the first one I tried on. The veil was gorgeous! The dress was $1500 and the Veil $500. It was imported from europe and the lady told me it was fine to reserve it so many months before. The bridesmaid dresses came from Alfred Angelo and they were close to $200 each. We paid for the dress of the flower girl but she didn't up going either, so that another waste of money, since they didn't allow refunds as well.

 

Now we are 3 months before the cruise and there is people still canceling and reserving rooms, so I still do not have the final count. I made a website with the knot, and on there I put all kinds of information, since most people had never cruised before. I made sure everyone made their final payment and change to their reservation by the due date. Royal Romance finally called me with the reception details. The prices have changed!!! I made all my selections and she went over everything with me. The ceremony would be in the chapel, and the reception in the pinnacle lounge. At this moment I made programs and iteneraries for everyone. I sent them by mail to every family. When she sent me the final paper work to sign everything, where it described the location, time, and all the selections I made, I see that it said that the ceremony and reception will be taking place in Vikings Crown, which is a club that is on board the cruise. I called her and she didn't answer like always! I emailed her saying there was a mistake, and she emailed right back saying that after speaking to the cordinator on the cruise, they decided it was a better location for both things since we had such a big group!!!!!! She never called me or emailed me to inform me about this change. Keep in mind this is 3 weeks before boarding! I called her numerous times and left messages saying that she never told me anything that if the ceremony could still be in the chapel and the reception could be in vikings crown if they like. It was very important to me that the ceremony was in the chapel. She said she had to get it approved by the cruise, and never heard back from her.

 

I never received a response from her, so 2 weeks before, I took it to the next level, I called another cordinator, that had helped me many months before with the change I made to the package and I saved her number. I told her to pass me with a supervisor, and she made me explain to her everything that was going on. I never got to speak to the supervisor, but this was the lady that solved everything for me. Apparently royal caribbean had confirmed the wedding on the chapel and reception in vikings crown and the other lady never told me anything. She took my final payment, which was another mess because they couldn't figure it out since I had made the change to the package previously, and it was a mess. I was 2 weeks before my wedding calling everyday royal romance, the group department, helping and explaining everything to all my guest, packing, and driving 12 hours to miami (my parents house, the cruise left from ft.lauderdale) with 6 luggages and a dog! Ofcourse I had to re-do the iteneraries and programs for the wedding, since the location had change, which created a lot of confusion, keep in mind it was 54 people!

 

At this point, I just wanted to get everything over with, and didn't care about anything anymore. So the day came! we arrived to ft.lauderdale with 2 big boxes of flowers, a carry on with all the wedding stuff I didn't want to break, and my dress. Here was when I let it all go! It was what it was meant to be and that was it! The boxes of flowers were too big, and they told me I had to turn it in so they could deliver it to my room. I argued with them and said no, they were my wedding flowers, and everyone knows how they treat those luggages, they throw them everywhere! They opened the box saw that everything was fine, so I was able to carry them with me. That day we went over everything with the cordinater, she was really nice, and gave us great service. I did a rehearsal myself the night before, in the chapel.

 

The big day has come!!! My stomach is in knots, I sent my husband to his best mans room. I did my own hair, didn't bother to make an appointment at the hair salon. My sister did my makeup, and my dad put on my dress. Everything turned out perfect! The cordinator came to my room to get me with the photographer (he was the seetest guy and we only reserved him for 2 hours, but stayed with us another 2 extra hours without charging us) Everyone was inside and the bridal party walked in and then I walked in with my dad. At that moment I said to myself IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!!! Everyone fit in the chapel, they small decorations they has made it look beautiful, the chairs facing the ocean, even though they didn't lift the blinds up to see outside, which was fine, I didn't want the pictures to come out dark. The ceremony was 25-30 minutes long, and it was very sentimental, she said beautiful things. We did the sand ceremony which was really pretty as well.

 

The reception in vikings crown was gorgeous. I took The guest book, the box for the greeting cards, the cake toopers, the flutes, and a frame with a picture of our engagement. Everyone wanted to take pictures with us, so we took pictures with every family seperately. The photographer told us to go around the cruise, and we did, this took up most of the time. The reception was only 2 hours. And that was one thing I didn't like, we couldn't dance or eat, which I heard the lunch buffet was awesome! But we couldn't pay for another hour and this is one thing they should alter, probably make a package with more reception time. We couldn't say no to the photographer since he was giving us extra time for free either. So we came back, did the tossing of the flower (I got the free bouquet that was included in the package to toss it, it was 3 roses tied togther, thank god I bought my flowers seperately!) the tossing of the garter, the cake cutting, said some words to our family members. And that was it! The photographer came around again and said to take us out again to take more pictures. We werent planning on buying all the pictures, but ofcourse you can't say no, they were all beautiful!

 

The wedding was perfect! Just wish we had more time, but other then that everyone had fun, and everyone said it was the best wedding and vacation of their lives.

 

Things I did but wouldn't spend money on if I were you!

1. wedding favors

2. centerpieces

3. flutes and serving set for the cake (we didn't used ours)

4. buying the video with royal caribbean (we bought our own camera and video taped it ourselves, it turned out fine)

5. Welcome goody bags

 

How to make it easier for you

1. have a small bridal party (it is usually hard to organized everyone, specially on board a cruise, where communication is limited)

2. Have a small group

3. Make sure everyone who says they will go, actually goes!

4. Most vendors don't let you refund items, so make sure you read their policies, if not make sure you are spending your money well and are not over buying.

5. Do a itenerary, mine had everything we will do day by day, time and location.

6. If you want you could reserve the shows the cruise provides for everyone. I did this everyone appreciated it since they didn't have to do it themselves, but it was more time on my side.

7. Make sure all the tables at dinner time are close together. The group department will do this, but mine were mess up. Everyone was close by, but no in the right tables. I could of changed it, but I just left it like that, and it was okay.

8. Buy your own flowers!

9. Try to do your own hair and make-up, you will look beautiful anyway! And it will save you money.

10. Do a wedding website. At theknot.com it is free and you could share it on facebook. Here you could put all kinds of information.

11. Make your CD with the songs you want to dance with your husband, dad, and mother and son. They never told me to do this, but I figured they will need it.

12. The extra wedding cordinators are pricey, but if you have no choice then you need to get them. They didn't do anything!!! I felt it was a waste of money but oh well. Just try to cut your group as small as possible.

13. I didn't give the cordinator a tip. They get paid to do their job, and after the mission I went through I didn't think i had to.

14. Take a box for the greeting cards, you don't want to be hold cards in your hand or have someone in charge of holding them, most of the time, they have significant amount of money inside.

 

There are pictures on my facebook you could look me up by my name gladys orta, or my email gladys_2125@yahoo.com I also did a board on pinterest. The board name is "wedding allure of the seas RCCL" and you could look me up on pinterest as well. I hate sending pictures by email because they never send because it is too big. Send me a friend request and a message saying you read this on cruise critic and i will accept you. I know there are barely no pictures out there of wedding on cruises so ill try to help who ever needs it.

 

Any questions just ask me here or email me, I know how it feels to not find any information online.

 

It doesn't let put pictures here. Here is the link to my pinterest.

 

http://www.pinterest.com/gladys0604/wedding-on-allure-of-the-seas-rccl/

Edited August 29, 2014 by royalcaribbeangirl

[mrstriceasnice]

Beautiful pictures! Congratulations

[royalcaribbeangirl]

thank you!!!

[dancinman66]

Great review thanks for the tips

I'll write it all down

Especially being a royL package

Congrats

 

 

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