ABeverage

Andrea, The same thing happened to me when I had my destination cruise wedding and it turned out to not be a big deal. Our Travel Agent contacted the cruise line to let them know that they should expect a transfer. Our agent provided us a Transfer form which each of the new travelers completed and faxed over to her. From there, our agent handled everything to ensure our guests were transfered over to our group and would be included in our special pricing, dining, etc. Everything will work out fine!

Hi Tami, We went on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas. The ship and the cruise itself was amazing. It turns out the coordinator / wedding piece of their business is all outsourced to some generic vendor that all of the cruiselines go through. So while they may call themselves Royal Romance on Royal Caribbean, they may be called something else on one of the other cruiselines. After the wedding we complained to Royal Caribbean and they gave us a couple of freebies but nothing big (bottle of champagne, hats, keychains, other prizes they usually hand out througout the cruise) and they said they would support us on behalf of Royal Caribbean through communicating the 3 page letter, we had to write during our cruise, to the vendor. It's been 2 weeks since the cruise and we haven't heard a thing from the vendor.

Recent cruise Bride here! I have to say the actual ceremony and the photography was amazing but the Coordination and actually getting on the ship was a nightmare. I have to agree with adias.angel...the vendor the cruise lines use (apparently it's the same one) is horrible when it comes to coordination...here's what happened to us: 1) Before the wedding I had to send multiple emails and make a ton of phone calls that took away from my contract time to correct the coordinators mistakes on things like Music, loads of typos and incorrect spelling of names, passport ID's, etc on the contract and final confirmation. They had my husband walking down the aisle to "Here comes the Bride" and NOT me! 2) The day of the wedding the coordinator was a half hour late. We were suppose to get Priority boarding as part of the wedding package we paid for but instead everyone else started the check in process before my wedding party. We actually got a down grade because my husband and I were Platinum members and we checked in after they did! 3) When the wedding coordinator did show up, she did not give us all priority. In the end my wedding party got on the boat at all different times. 4) The wedding coordinator did not have my custom vows or sand ceremony reading. She had no record of anything. Luckily I had copies with me so I spent a good 30 minutes with the officient myself before getting on the ship going over what she should be saying and when. It was nuts! 5) That week (and the previous 2 weeks) homeland security was doing training so we were delayed getting on the ship yet the coordinators knew this and still planned 3 weddings in the same day prior to leaving port. Mine was the first planned for 1 PM and I had been told a week earlier by the vendor that I would have at least an hour to get ready. Well, at 12:38PM it was announced that they would start boarding at 1:15. Needless to say I had to get 99.9% ready in the Port of Miami bathroom. Hair, makeup, etc. Bathroom. 6) When I mentioned to the coordinator that I was told I'd have an hour to get ready once on the ship, she told me that no one from her company would ever have told me that. Of course I gave her the name of the person who did but she still basically called me a liar on my wedding day. 7) At one point the coordinator said she wasn't sure what was going to happen with my wedding or if it was even going to happen at all. When asked, she couldn't give us any information regarding the possible scenarios either. 8 ) When we finally did start to board, our group was not given Priority and we ended up all getting separated. The coordinator only told me and my husband that our wedding would now be at 1:30 in the chapel and then she went MIA on us too! So my husband was running all over the place trying to touch base with our other 11 guests to let them know where they were suppose to go and when. Nightmare! So with all of that, (there was more but I think you get the point) I had just enough time to pull on my dress and get to the chapel. It was the most stressful day of my life. Going in to it I was really calm but after that debocle I was shaking, sweating and ready to choke someone. It wasn't good at all. The ceremony did end up being nice but everyone, including my 11 other guests, spent a lot of it upset over the morning incidents. By dinner time everyone was so tired / stressed out that we pretty much all just passed out. The rest of the cruise was great though. If I could have my wedding day back, and I was still crazy enough to want to do it on a cruise I would not pick the sailing day. I would probably try to do it at the first port as early in the day as possible or go on a cruiseline that could marry you at sea where you wouldn't be quite pressed on time. Looking back on it all, I think to be honest I would just fly to an island and pick a nice spot on the beach at sunset under a cabana or something. Over all we are just really upset because we spent a lot of money and didn't feel like we got what we paid for. (We did ALL of the coordination, the vendor actually cause a l ot of unnecessary stress for us, and they did not fulfill their part of the contract) We made a formal complaint that is now being investigated. Not sure if they will do anything for us but we hope they will.

I'm completely bumming out. I started feeling sick yesterday and now I have a full blown head cold (really miserable). I'm just a couple of weeks away from my wedding and there is just no way I can work out feeling like this! I don't know what to do =/

sm316217: I hear ya. I'm going to try to fight to get the price down too! I will keep you updated on what happens. I just find $1000 to be overly ridiculous and obvious that they are taking advantage of the situation. My friends who got married in Mystic Seaport Connecticut recently got a CD with ALL of their wedding images for only $50 more. It costs them nothing to do that and they trash the images after the cruise anyway. I can see them requiring that you at least buy one of the packages but having to buy the most expensive package is also ridiculous. Who needs 5 wedding albums, 2 or 3 leatherette portfolios and other album like artifacts. I just want to pay for pictures. Ugh! Anyway, I will follow up once they actually pick up the phone or email me. Having a really hard time getting an answer from them. =/

sm316217: Thanks so much for the info. I am just really bummed about the cost of just the CD. Part of the reason I chose to go the destination wedding route is because we don't want to spend an arm and a leg for our wedding since we are saving for a down payment on house =/ I really want our pictures though and having the CD would be great because we are going to have some sort of slide show at our local reception when we return...but $1000 for just a cd? that is just a rip. At home you can get 2 photographers, hundreds of pictures plus a photobook and all of your pics on a CD for that price. They really know how to take advantage of the situation. =/ Rather than save for the outrageous prices I think we all need to let them know that their prices are just outright robbery!

sm316217, I was actually trying to get an answer on the price of just ordering a CD with the images since we will be having a blessing ceremony when we get home we just want to have a slide show of all of our pictures and we don't want to have to scan them all in to a computer when we get back. Is it $1,000 just for the disk or is that part of the Photo package that comes with a cd of all images? If it's just the disk, I'm not surprised, but that is just outrageous. I mean, how many pictures can they really take in 1 or 2 hours? We wouldn't even pay anything close to that at home. That has to be my one complaint. They know they have you over a barrel and can charge whatever they want. Pictures are the one thing that I really wanted but we really can't afford the packages. = / They have to give us some sort of a break somewhere.

I'm a cruise bride, May 11, 2008 on Freedom of the Seas! I can't wait. We got engaged on the Liberty of the Seas and figured why not get married on one too. We also have such a tiny family and we're paying for our own wedding so it just made sense to have a destination wedding. There will be 11 of us...we can't wait. Weddings on a cruise ship is cheaper than a traditional wedding however they still charge up the wazoo for everything. (At least that's what we have found) and there isn't much leeway when it comes to schedule changes. For instance we wanted to have our extra hour of photography (that we paid extra for) come directly after the ceremony and then have cake cutting / toast once we were done. They flat out said no, they can not do that because they are on a schedule. So we have to have the ceremony, cake cutting/toast and then we can use the additional hour of photography. Ah well. Guess I won't be eating much cake or drinking. I'm afraid of spilling something all over the front of the dress. On a positive note, it's definitely less stressful and instead of having a party/reception that lasts 1 night..you get a full week! We can't wait!

Random question... I see a ton of cute logos with Palm Trees / Star Fish and the couples names and wedding dates. I'd love to make one of thesse with my info. Any suggestions or info on where to go to do this is greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!

We are doing something very similiar but not as formal. A few weeks after our wedding we will have a short blessing ceremony outside at this hotel and then a small luncheon reception in a private dining area so our friends and family who could not travel with us will have the feeling that they are seeing something that resembles a wedding...no I Do's though. And I'm definitely wearing my dress again. Hey, 2 for 1 right : ) We're still a bit disorganized when it comes to the actual flow after the blessing but this is sort of what we were thinking: - We have the outdoor patio for a while after the blessing so we were going to have people come around and take drink orders at that point in time. - We'll have a short toast once everyone seems settled - Before the meal there will be a couple of tables our guests can go to on their own and take a look at picture books that we were going to have made up by shutterfly after our real wedding. They ship the next day and are very reasonable! - We are thinking about showing a video too either at this time or while everyone is eating cake...but we're not sure how that will work since we are taking the video ourselves. Not sure we'll have time to get it editted since we only have 2 weeks until our local celebration. - Lunch will be served, 3 course meal + wedding cake - More mingling and checking out the photos And that's it, I'm also looking for ideas on fun ideas or ways to keep things flowing as well as what on earth to do with the home made video (really nervous about that)

We are doing something very similiar but not as formal. A few weeks after our wedding we will have a short blessing ceremony outside at this hotel and then a small luncheon reception in a private dining area so our friends and family who could not travel with us will have the feeling that they are seeing something that resembles a wedding...no I Do's though. And I'm definitely wearing my dress again. Hey, 2 for 1 right : ) We're still a bit disorganized when it comes to the actual flow after the blessing but this is sort of what we were thinking: - We have the outdoor patio for a while after the blessing so we were going to have people come around and take drink orders at that point in time. - We'll have a short toast once everyone seems settled - Before the meal there will be a couple of tables our guests can go to on their own and take a look at picture books that we were going to have made up by shutterfly after our real wedding. They ship the next day and are very reasonable! - We are thinking about showing a video too either at this time or while everyone is eating cake...but we're not sure how that will work since we are taking the video ourselves. Not sure we'll have time to get it editted since we only have 2 weeks until our local celebration. - Lunch will be served, 3 course meal + wedding cake - More mingling and checking out the photos

I'm heading to the gym right now. I'll do 1 hour class that's weight training and another that's cardio. Whew! Seems if I have a class to go to I'll actually go but I've had a really hard time just working out on my own.

Those little cheeseburger cupcakes are amazing! How on earth did you do that? They really look like cheesburgers! How do they taste? Do you put frosting on the inside? So cool.

Thanks everyone for such a nice welcome! This site is amazing. I've already found so many helpful threads. I just wish I came upon this site a couple of months ago. Ah well, I still have plenty of planning that I still need to do and it seems like everyone here has such wonderful ideas. Thanks again!

Hey Morgan, Sorry for so many posts but I have a quick question on Vista Print. I was just looking through their products and I did come across the brochures under their Marketing section but it looks like you can only order 25 at a time. Am I looking at the right thing? I really only need to order 10 though I guess taking in to account how much it would cost me to do it at home buying the 25 wouldn't be all that bad. Thanks again, Amy