2016 Brides!

[Miss Kellybean]

One more thing...

 

As far as favors go, we have decided on sunglasses and ribbon wands at the reception and for our sailing guests, having chocolate covered strawberries delivered to their cabins. We are going against the trend here but I think there would be more of an impact to our families and friends to send an indulgent treat than to give them things that will be thrown away or forgotten.

[clutsycd]

I absolutely loved your website! I am using Wedding Wire as well, and while I thought I had covered everything after reading yours I have realized that there are so many details that I have not covered. I'm going to steal some of your ideas, hope you don't mind.

[AIRIKUH]

OK. First of all, pick what cruise you are interested in. Your second step is to call Carnival Weddings - see their brochure for the number. Once you can see that your date is available, they will hold it for you while you call your PVP and book your cruise reservation and make a deposit. Once the cruise is booked - they will transfer you to the Wedding department and you can secure your wedding. You must pay for the whole wedding at this point.

 

TWE is the on site coordinator and they do some upcharges. You don't need to give them a penny if you don't want to upgrade anything. You also have plenty of time!! About 2 weeks after you are booked, you will get info from TWE.

 

If you need a PVP (Personal Vacation Planner) - let me know! Mine is awesome!!

 

Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS!!!

 

Hi! I am a new bride to this page (I have been stalking it for 3 months but just now signed up haha) but have found it EXTREMELY helpful! We are (hopefully) going to book everything this week. We got engaged at the end of August on a RC cruise :) I want to have our wedding on the Carnival Magic in October of next year (my grandmother has worked for Carnival for 30+ years so I am partial ;)). I know that we have to book the cruise first so I was wondering if you could give me your PVP's name/number? I've talked to a few of them and I haven't really been a fan.

[mamasaymamasah]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! We are getting married aboard the Carnival Valor 10/13/16, the Celebrate Big package as well! Thank you for sharing your website! It looks awesome and will be a helpful tool in designing my own :) Have you written/designed your invitations yet? I'm having trouble figuring out what and how much information to include on the actual invitation. Will you just be including the basic wedding information on the invitation and then just directing guests to the website for all of the details?

 

 

You're welcome! I'm using a boarding pass and passport invitation suite I found on etsy. The passport will allow for a bit more info than a traditional invitation, but the website is still where I'm directing people if they ask me a question that I've already answered! haha

[mamasaymamasah]

MaKeshia, this is so wonderful! We haven't booked yet but are planning on booking our wedding on the Breeze out of Galveston either July 31 or August 14. We will be so close to each other! Your website is awesome too, btw.

 

 

Thank you! I'm so excited that the Breeze is coming to Galveston! We looked into the 14th and no other weddings had been booked so hopefully either way you'll get exactly what you want :)

[Miss Kellybean]

Hi! I am a new bride to this page (I have been stalking it for 3 months but just now signed up haha) but have found it EXTREMELY helpful! We are (hopefully) going to book everything this week. We got engaged at the end of August on a RC cruise :) I want to have our wedding on the Carnival Magic in October of next year (my grandmother has worked for Carnival for 30+ years so I am partial ;)). I know that we have to book the cruise first so I was wondering if you could give me your PVP's name/number? I've talked to a few of them and I haven't really been a fan.

 

Her name is Patricia and her extension is 85969. I don't know if I am allowed to post the Carnival reservation number on here so to be safe, I'll just leave her extension. I am sure you can get the number easily. Also, congratulations!! I am actually sailing on the Magic in June for our summer vacation so I am super excited for that upcoming trip, too. If it is your first trip on her, I would be happy to find anything out for you when June rolls around.

[AIRIKUH]

Her name is Patricia and her extension is 85969. I don't know if I am allowed to post the Carnival reservation number on here so to be safe, I'll just leave her extension. I am sure you can get the number easily. Also, congratulations!! I am actually sailing on the Magic in June for our summer vacation so I am super excited for that upcoming trip, too. If it is your first trip on her, I would be happy to find anything out for you when June rolls around.

 

Thank you!! I'm really excited to get things going haha. It will be our first time on the Magic so that would be wonderful if you could let me know! My grandma works out of Port Canaveral so I am thinking we might do a tour of the Magic next summer if we get a chance to go down there but that's a big maybe.

 

I had my initial call with Carnival Weddings last night just to get some information and they surprised me with how easy it was to get info from them/how helpful they were. We will hopefully be holding the wedding/booking the cruise within the next week. We are paying for everything on our own so my fiance is sweating a little bit about coming up with the deposit and wedding payment so soon since it's all due at once. Should be fun figuring all that out :eek:

[Cupcake Queen]

Hi Everyone-

I'm getting married on January 16th on RC Independence of the Seas.

We have 70 people going with us! It's going to be nuts and I'm super excited.

Congrats to you all :-)

[Boothwedding2016]

Ladies,

I've read the various threads and now I'm a little freaked out. My wedding aboard the Carnival Sunshine on January 16, 2016 is just 57 days. I can't thank you ladies enough for all the helpful advice. Needless to say, I will be placing a call promptly at 9:01 tomorrow morning for a few things they failed to mention (signature drink, additional menus, etc).

 

However I have a couple words of advice as the days are closely approaching for the wedding.

 

1: Make sure you follow up every conversation with TWE in an email. They will prove to be helpful. For example, my TWE told me I had until 12/16 to provide final list of guests. Sent in an email with her confirmation. About 2 weeks ago, I was told my final guest was due TODAY. Invitations and RSVP were ordered based on the 12/16 date. Her email gave me the extra 4 weeks.

 

2: Be careful with the marriage license. You must have you cashiers checks to them by 75 days. Any later and you are paying an extra $150!

 

3: Watch the steps outlined in the marriage license portion. If you are having them pick up the license, you must complete a pre-wedding application online with the State of Florida. Otherwise, your cashiers checks will be returned by TWE.

 

4: Send emails and call often into TWE to confirm what add'l things you need. We experienced the "oh you need to turn xyz paperwork, meanwhile you didn't even know that was due nor ever had an attachment for that".

 

5: If you are getting married in Port Canaveral and looking for hotel room blocks, call Michelle (Director of Sales) at the Country Inn & Suites. She's been a God sent to us. Super friendly and everyone has been so helpful. The hotel is located at the end of the street from the port. They offer shuttle service for your sailing guests and extended parking.

 

I hope all the other brides getting married soon have some additional words of advice. Everything is greatly appreciated!

[AIRIKUH]

Thank you so much for all of your advice BoothWedding2016!! And congrats to you!! We are getting married out of Port Canaveral next October so all of this info is so helpful :) I'd also like to thank Miss Kellybean for giving me PVP Patricia's info...she is literally a doll and she was so helpful with everything! We had guests calling to book and they didn't even have to give her our booking number...she remembered us by name :) And congrats to you Cupcake Queen!!

 

I've only posted twice in this forum but I got so much good information and advice from all of you in the previous months that I just wanted to say thank you! We booked our wedding last night (HOORAY!!!!!) and are officially getting married aboard the Carnival Magic in St. Thomas on October 11th, 2016! The ship is sailing out of Port Canaveral and I confirmed with our PVP that the Magic is getting dry-docked in February 2016 which is a bonus:cool: We got a suite which we are VERY excited about as we have only ever had balcony rooms.

 

We chose the Time to Celebrate...Big package but we added 1/2 hour to our reception so Carnival Weddings is calling it the Time to Celebrate...BIGGER package. I confirmed it would be $100 extra to add the 1/2 hour to our reception and any additional guests over 20 will be $36 pp instead of $30. We really wanted the DJ and I did a lot of reading on here and got a lot of different numbers from the Carnival Wedding ladies. I saw that it would be $110 for the DJ on here and $75 for the extra half hour...well last night when we were booking we were told it is $350 for the "Carnival Music Mix" for 2 hours. This is the DJ package and I tried for almost 20 minutes to get the price down but she wasn't having it. We decided that since the ceremony/reception package as a whole is so cheap we will just suck it up and pay the $350. Those are the only extras we have added so far...I just wanted to make sure we could get the longer reception and DJ.

 

As for the ceremony...they didn't give me the "Showtime Theatre" as an option but I told her that is what I want so she is going to request it for me. I'm going to make sure and tell every person I talk to from CW & Royal Ocean Events (is this the same as The Wedding Experience? She told us this would be the third party vendor helping us plan) that I want this and get it in writing as well. I know our locations aren't confirmed until a couple weeks before but at least I am making it known in advance. She said we could play our own music for the ceremony as long as we bring a CD. I was also told we could push our ceremony back to 1:30 or 2 as the normal time is 1. I wanted to do this because the ship doesn't dock until 11:00am in St. Thomas and we have to get off the boat to get our marriage license at the courthouse. She did say that Carnival arranges the transportation for all of this which is nice. I want to be ready by 11:00am but back in time to touch up my hair and makeup before the ceremony. Just for kicks I asked her if we could request our ice sculpture to be something that we want...she said that it's possible but there would be an additional fee. The ice sculpture wasn't really an important detail to us so we probably won't do that but I just wanted to see what they would say. They really do seem to work with you on anything extra but this is just the beginning stages so we will see if this helpfulness extends out in the future planning.

 

Everything else is still in the early planning stages since we just booked the wedding last night :D I have already asked my Maids of Honor (2) and Bridesmaids (3) and they are aware it's a cruise wedding. My next steps will be a guest list and sending out STD/Invites (still debating on if we will just send invites now so guests have a lot of time to prepare/book/save) in the next 2 weeks. I'm also making a website which I will post on here when done. I have gotten A TON of inspiration and wording from other cruise wedding websites so another thanks to all you ladies for that!

 

We booked everything last night and we already have 10 guests booked!! Mostly family & bridal party but it is still exciting. I'll just call my fiance B on here from now on and he was a little concerned about a lot of people not attending but he is getting excited now. Now we just wait on our phone call from Carnival Weddings who is supposed to be calling us to follow up in 7-10 business days and our calls with Royal Ocean Events which won't be until May/June.

 

I'm not forum/coding savvy so I don't know how to add the little countdown tickers BUT 323 days until we set sail and 326 days until our WEDDING!

[heather9844]

Thank you! I'm so excited that the Breeze is coming to Galveston! We looked into the 14th and no other weddings had been booked so hopefully either way you'll get exactly what you want :)

 

 

Oh thanks! Good to know! I'm just waiting on my boyfriend to officially propose and I'm gonna book immediately after that [emoji23]

[PSRCPA]

Hello Future Brides!

 

I didn't post much during my 18 months of planning but did read the board and picked up a lot of good information. The one thing we had no back up plan for was a missed port and we missed our island wedding on St Thomas - Carnival Valor, November 7th cruise due to Tropical Storm Kate and another behind it.

 

The cruise began on Saturday from Port Canaveral, Bahamas on Sunday along with a Bachelor & Bachelorette party Sunday night....lots of fun!! Monday, our sea day, we received a call from our onboard wedding hostess, first thing in the morning, asking us to meet her in the Atrium. We were waiting on the elevator when the Captain came on and said due to the pending storms we would have a change of itinerary from St Thomas to Amber Cove. Mike & I looked at each other and my heart sank! Eva, our wedding hostess, was hoping to tell us before the Captain's announcement.

 

Eva, and William from Guest Services took us into a private room to discuss alternatives. My brother and his wife had flown to St Thomas for the wedding and immediately Carnival put into motion getting in touch with them.

 

Our options were limited even with three port of calls... Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico would not accept our paper work filed with St Thomas. There was a possibility Gran Turk would but they required another document and we would have to have someone fax for us. We were given all day to think it over....it took me half the day to wrap my mind around it all!! We had 35 sailing guests with us. Needless to say...they were all very supportive...they were there for us!!

 

In the end we decided not to go with Gran Turk - we didn't know anything about the venue or amenities; Was there shade, it was to be 87 degrees, chairs for our guest? water? Too many unknowns.

 

We chose to have a symbolic ceremony onboard the last sea day, Friday. Our ceremony was in the Capital Room, my sister preformed the ceremony, (the Captain offered) as she was prepared to do in St Thomas, and our reception was in the Winston Lounge.

 

The same night we made our decision we were informed everything we paid for on island had been refunded to our credit card...and it was!

 

Here's what I want to say....Carnival went above and beyond our expectations! Eva came to our table in the dining room every night to check on us to see if we had any questions or needed anything. The set up in the Capital Room was beautiful even if it wasn't an island setting and the Winston Lounge was a great place for our guests and reception....we like to dance!

 

We aren't quite sure who was responsible but we had so many surprises throughout the week....little gifts showed up in our cabin, we were provided internet service, and it seemed every where we went on the ship guests and crew knew we were the couple who missed our wedding on St Thomas!

 

The biggest surprises came at the reception....all the Senior Officers were lined up as we entered the room, Mat our CD stopped by, the Chef provided a beautiful design for our yummy wedding cake and the ice sculpture on our food table was amazing! Yes, we paid for the reception but all the upgrades were on Carnival and over the top!

 

Truly we feel blessed and can't say enough on how Carnival handled our misfortune. We never once blamed Carnival for missing the port....we believe in safety first!

 

Future Brides....we wish you love, happiness and a beautiful wedding day whether onboard or on island.

[Miss Kellybean]

Pam!

 

There were a lot of people pulling for you. John Heald had posted about your situation on FB and probably thousands were hoping for the best! It seems like you are able to make the best of the situation and that is what I am hoping for. Best wishes to you and your new husband!

 

:) Kelly

[Jd2005]

Ladies,

 

I've read the various threads and now I'm a little freaked out. My wedding aboard the Carnival Sunshine on January 16, 2016 is just 57 days. I can't thank you ladies enough for all the helpful advice. Needless to say, I will be placing a call promptly at 9:01 tomorrow morning for a few things they failed to mention (signature drink, additional menus, etc).

 

 

 

However I have a couple words of advice as the days are closely approaching for the wedding.

 

 

 

1: Make sure you follow up every conversation with TWE in an email. They will prove to be helpful. For example, my TWE told me I had until 12/16 to provide final list of guests. Sent in an email with her confirmation. About 2 weeks ago, I was told my final guest was due TODAY. Invitations and RSVP were ordered based on the 12/16 date. Her email gave me the extra 4 weeks.

 

 

 

2: Be careful with the marriage license. You must have you cashiers checks to them by 75 days. Any later and you are paying an extra $150!

 

 

 

3: Watch the steps outlined in the marriage license portion. If you are having them pick up the license, you must complete a pre-wedding application online with the State of Florida. Otherwise, your cashiers checks will be returned by TWE.

 

 

 

4: Send emails and call often into TWE to confirm what add'l things you need. We experienced the "oh you need to turn xyz paperwork, meanwhile you didn't even know that was due nor ever had an attachment for that".

 

 

 

5: If you are getting married in Port Canaveral and looking for hotel room blocks, call Michelle (Director of Sales) at the Country Inn & Suites. She's been a God sent to us. Super friendly and everyone has been so helpful. The hotel is located at the end of the street from the port. They offer shuttle service for your sailing guests and extended parking.

 

 

 

I hope all the other brides getting married soon have some additional words of advice. Everything is greatly appreciated!

 

 

Thanks for your words of advice. I'm getting married on the sunshine 6/18/16... Can't wait to hear all about your wedding! Where will you have your ceremony and reception?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jd2005]

I need ideas for an invitation where we can list all of the trip details. Any ideas? I saw something like a boarding pass and the envelope had the itinerary, but I can't find the place that sells them

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Miss Kellybean]

I need ideas for an invitation where we can list all of the trip details. Any ideas? I saw something like a boarding pass and the envelope had the itinerary, but I can't find the place that sells them

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I have seen some from Vanessa's Destination Wedding passports that can handle a lot of information. Is that the one you are looking for?

[Jd2005]

I have seen some from Vanessa's Destination Wedding passports that can handle a lot of information. Is that the one you are looking for?

 

 

That's exactly what i need! Thank you!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ccruise87]

Do any Jewish brides know if there is an option for a chuppah at the ceremony? Thanks!

[prettydrbreezy]

Hi all,

 

Just wanted to introduce myself to the group. I'm newly engaged but have been browsing this and other wedding cruise threads for the past several months since my fiance and I already knew we wanted to go with a cruise ship wedding to simplify things and save money.

 

I'm calling first thing in the morning to pay the deposit for our wedding on the Carnival Ecstasy -- leaving out of Charleston, SC on November 27, 2016. Super excited, but also a little concerned about sending save the dates/invitations and setting up the wedding website. I really want to keep things as simple as possible but also consider folks who aren't computer/Internet savvy (if it were up to me, everything would be online only!). Don't want to overload people with information but also don't want to have to spend hours on the phone explaining details to folks over and over again.

 

Anywhoo...looking forward to getting to know you all and hearing about your planning and event experiences. Here's to the engaged life!

 

Natasha

[Miss Kellybean]

Hi all,

 

Just wanted to introduce myself to the group. I'm newly engaged but have been browsing this and other wedding cruise threads for the past several months since my fiance and I already knew we wanted to go with a cruise ship wedding to simplify things and save money.

 

I'm calling first thing in the morning to pay the deposit for our wedding on the Carnival Ecstasy -- leaving out of Charleston, SC on November 27, 2016. Super excited, but also a little concerned about sending save the dates/invitations and setting up the wedding website. I really want to keep things as simple as possible but also consider folks who aren't computer/Internet savvy (if it were up to me, everything would be online only!). Don't want to overload people with information but also don't want to have to spend hours on the phone explaining details to folks over and over again.

 

Anywhoo...looking forward to getting to know you all and hearing about your planning and event experiences. Here's to the engaged life!

 

Natasha

 

I learned that explaining things over and over again are part of the deal. Even with a thorough Website and friends and family that are all connected, I still keep answering the same questions and correcting our guests and clearing up confusion.

 

It doesn't bother me that much except when a bunch of people booked outside of our coordinator making more work for everyone. Oh well. Nothing we can do about it.

 

Congratulations to you and have fun during the next year!!

[AIRIKUH]

Hi all,

 

Just wanted to introduce myself to the group. I'm newly engaged but have been browsing this and other wedding cruise threads for the past several months since my fiance and I already knew we wanted to go with a cruise ship wedding to simplify things and save money.

 

I'm calling first thing in the morning to pay the deposit for our wedding on the Carnival Ecstasy -- leaving out of Charleston, SC on November 27, 2016. Super excited, but also a little concerned about sending save the dates/invitations and setting up the wedding website. I really want to keep things as simple as possible but also consider folks who aren't computer/Internet savvy (if it were up to me, everything would be online only!). Don't want to overload people with information but also don't want to have to spend hours on the phone explaining details to folks over and over again.

 

Anywhoo...looking forward to getting to know you all and hearing about your planning and event experiences. Here's to the engaged life!

 

Natasha

 

Congrats to you! We just booked our wedding 2 weeks ago and decided we were just going to do invitations ASAP so people would have time to prepare/save/take off work. I designed the invites on Minted last week and they arrived today :) now to start addressing them! We're having our guests RSVP via our website instead of sending RSVP cards out so I'm expecting to get a lot of questions but oh well. I feel like the RSVP cards are pointless when the RSVP on the website automatically gathers everyone's information into a database. I have already called all of the older guests that aren't internet savvy to guide them through everything.

 

Now I'm just waiting for my call from Carnival Weddings and the RSVP's/questions to start rolling in :p

[MonaCK]

Hi folks - it's been a while, but my wedding planning has gone into full swing. ;)

Invitations have been ordered from Vistaprint, along with RSVP cards. I am also working on a letter of some sort that will be inserted into the invites for folks to understand the entire process, including the fact that we will need additional information from non-sailing guests.

 

And I ordered my wedding dress last Sunday! I wasn't sure what I was looking for - or even if I wanted an "official" wedding dress, but once I put this dress on, it fit like a glove.

 

I believe we are now at 52 sailing with us - we had a few drop off. I am not sure about non-sailing, but we are hoping to keep the total amount of people to around 100. We'll see if that happens, though. Celebrity allows up to 150 non sailing guests...

 

We're almost at the 5 month mark. Holy hannah...

[putco]

Magic June 2016

[wakeupinanewland]

I have 40 days to go. The time is finally upon us! Final hair trial, dress fitting, submitting the final guest list and music. I remember just booking all of this a few months ago!

[AIRIKUH]

I have 40 days to go. The time is finally upon us! Final hair trial, dress fitting, submitting the final guest list and music. I remember just booking all of this a few months ago!

 

How exciting!! Hopefully everything goes smoothly for you over the next 40 days!