cruisebride2016

@@laurenlou21 I got married in Jamaica during a cruise. I worked with a planner on the island instead of working with the cruise line. I had read so many reviews saying that the cruise line doesn't do much of the planning until the last minute and I didn't like that idea. Let me know if you have any other questions about a cruise wedding.

@@Kkaring Since you have a travel agent, you should ask them about the tour conductor credits (TCC). The travel agents are not required to give you these credits, but you can negotiate with them to get more money towards your cruise/guests. Each cruise has a value as far as TCC goes and those can be converted to money or gifts. These are on top of the money you earn for the group booking. Our guests had a little bit of time to explore the shops in the port when we got back after the wedding, but they did not get to see Jamaica (other than the drive from the port to our location, which was a 90 minute drive each way). I got off the ship as soon as it was cleared by the authorities, then the guests got off about 2 hours later, but I think most of them just slept in and got ready instead of exploring Falmouth before leaving for the wedding. No one complained about missing out on Jamaica because they got to see a portion of the country with the drive and we had a beautiful view during the wedding. Here is the view of our wedding venue: I forgot to post this before, but it is a picture of our cake: I requested a cake that would feed 12 people (although we had 24 people) because we were doing it before dinner, so I knew that people would not eat much. I think only 1/2-3/4 of the cake was actually eaten (even with being so small). Therefore, we had the rest of it to snack on during the rest of the cruise. As I am responded to your questions and posting pictures, it makes me realize how important our photographer was. We brought a photographer with us, so she captured the entire week. Most importantly, she captured the wedding venue and ceremony, then we returned to the ship and we spent over an hour going around the ship and taking pictures, followed by the reception and dinner. As we evaluated options, we could either have a person to do the venue or the ship, but we felt it was important to capture both (and it was!!!). We had to pay for her flight and cruise, but it was worth it to have amazing pictures!!! Photos are the thing that we have to remember our memorable day/week. So, if you are disappointed by those photos, that will linger with you forever and you can never redo it. Honestly, I think the pictures are more important then everything else, even the dress, hair, flowers, etc.

@@Kkaring We had a total of 24 people, including us. If I remember correctly, we had 14 cabins. That is great if you already have 30 rooms booked! Indy is a wonderful ship. My husband and I had been on it before our wedding cruise. Are you using a travel agent? You have a group booking, right? There is a group coordinator onboard that you could probably ask to help you coordinate some of these things, but you wouldn't be able to do that until you get on the ship. We had a group booking, but we didn't work with the group coordinator since we utilized the concierge instead. Giovanni's was a GREAT place for our group. They served the food family style, so we all got to try a little bit of everything. It was a huge hit with our group! We made the reservation for our entire group for Giovanni's once we got onboard. The cost was charged to our room and we had credit on the room for the group booking that covered the cost. Here was our group at Giovanni's: Yes, we did welcome bags. Most of our guests were coming from California, so we encouraged everyone to arrive the night prior to the cruise. We had blocked rooms at a hotel, so everyone was staying at the same hotel the night before. We had a welcome happy hour at the restaurant at the hotel and handed out the bags at that time. We put together the survival kits and bags at the hotel during the afternoon before the happy hour. Our welcome bags included a canvas bag (1 per cabin) with a welcome letter, T-shirt, survival kit, kleenex, pens, notepads, and luggage tags. Here are our welcome bag and survival kit:

@@Kkaring Which ship will you be on? What kind of room do you have booked? How many guests/rooms are you expecting on the cruise? If you have a group booking, you will earn money for every 16 guests. We earned enough money to pay for everyone's dinner in Giovanni's (Italian Specialty Restaurant). We had the Royal Suite, therefore we had a concierge who helped us once we were on the ship. The negative was that some planning couldn't happen until we were onboard. But, the benefit was that it was easy to communicate with her. Since we had a large room, we had our reception in our room. We paid for 1 hour of a bartender in the room, which was a big hit! For food, we just had appetizers by bringing some onboard and ordering from room service. The concierge was able to get us a nice cake that you don't see in any of the catering menus posted online. I'm happy to answer any other questions you have. Good luck as you continue with your planning!

@@LauraM85 I think "and guest" is fine.

@@Kkaring I got married while in port in Falmouth during a Royal Caribbean cruise in April 2016. I had a planning thread, so you can look through that. I think Falmouth is a better option than Labadee because you will have more options. What type of wedding would you want? On the beach, view of the beach/water, waterfall view, etc? What specific questions do you have?

Congratulations on booking a cruise wedding! I had my wedding during a Royal Caribbean cruise while in port in April. Since I didn't do it on embarkation day, I am not sure how much help I will be. The biggest complaint I had read about planning your wedding through the cruise is that you don't work out all the little details until a few months before, so good luck! I know you will have a wedding coordinator meet you at the port and escort you onto the ship. I think they will let you get onboard to start getting ready once all the previous cruisers have gotten off the ship, which has usually been around 11am on my previous cruises. I think your guests will need to be off the ship about 1 hour prior to sail away, but I know they will give you the specifics as it gets closer to the wedding. My biggest piece of advice with a cruise wedding is that you need to be quite flexible and expect there to be deviations from the initial plan. I was on a cruise earlier this year and there was a wedding on embarkation day. The previous cruise had norovirus, so the ship underwent a deep cleaning and the bride, groom and their guests had to wait until the ship was cleared, which was about 2 hours later than scheduled. For our wedding, we cruised out of Fort Lauderdale, so we found a hotel and were able to book a group rate. Our guests flew in the night prior to the cruise and everyone stayed at the hotel. We arranged transportation from the hotel to the port. So, if your guests will be arriving to Orlando around the same time, you could hire a van to transport them. If they are not coming at the same time, you could check the cruise critic website for recommendations of best transportation options and provide a list to your guests. Since we didn't book our wedding through the cruise, I was able to bring my own photographer. I don't think 3 hours would not be enough time for pictures of getting ready, first look, ceremony, and reception. You might want to ask a friend to take the getting ready pictures. Another option might be to extend the time with the cruise photographer, but you would need to pay more. Some of my favorite pictures are the ones we took around the ship. It took us an hour just to do those pictures and that would take you away from your guests, so it would be better to do that after the guests who are disembarking have done so. We gave our out of town bags to the guests at the hotel the night before, so we didn't have to take the stuff on the ship, but we did have to pack it in our luggage that we checked onto the flight. It might be too chaotic to give out gifts at the wedding because you (as the bride) will only have time to get yourself ready before the wedding. You won't have time to put together gifts once you are on the ship. You could consider only giving out gifts to the people (if any) who cruise with you. I hope this helps some. I am happy to try to help as much as possible, so feel free to ask any questions.

I worked with her for my wedding in April 2016. Everything turned out how I expected. What specific questions do you have?

@@liza I made custom t-shirts on customink.com that came out really nice. I am not sure if you can put a photo on it though. The fewer colors you use on the shirt, the cheaper.

@@Johnsonspartyof2 We did a wedding website will all the booking details and such. But, as it got closer to the wedding and we wanted to make announcements/updates, we created a Facebook page. It was also an opportunity for our guests to start to get to know each other. It worked out really well! For the few who were not only Facebook, we emailed or texted them the info.

@@AliciaW I think it would be best to put the prices on the website. People will want to know the price before they put down a deposit. There is no reason to require them to contact the travel agent when you have all the info and could post it.

@GrahamCrackerLackin- Welcome to the boards! I got married in Jamaica during a cruise on Royal Caribbean in April 2016. There is definitely pros and cons to a cruise wedding, but we would do it again without hesitation! There is still a lot of planning and work that goes into a cruise wedding. We did the ceremony in Jamaica and used a Jamaican wedding coordinator. I was happy with this decision because it allowed me to work with her to plan the ceremony for the year prior. This is compared to working with a random person in the wedding department of the cruise line prior to the cruise and not being able to do much planning until the month or two prior to the cruise, then working with a different person once you get on the cruise. As far as guest reactions, we had an overall good response. Most people who didn't come would not have come to a destination wedding in Mexico due to not having the finances or able to take off enough time. The only difference the cruise made for us was that women could not be more than 24 weeks pregnant. This rule caused at least 3 couples to back out because they would be too far in the pregnancy. If we had done a destination wedding, they could have come, although they still might not have felt comfortable traveling that late in their pregnancy. Here is a link to my planning thread, which might be helpful: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/topic/79586-cruisebride2016-cruise-wedding-planning-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1904615 Feel free to send me any questions you have about planning a cruise wedding. Good luck!

@@ashhtayy Have a wonderful trip! Hope everything goes smoothly and turns out the way you dreamed about!! I am sure you will have a happy and memorable wedding day!!

Hope you had an amazing wedding day!!

Happy Wedding Day! It will be amazing, just take a deep breath and enjoy it!

@@ashhtayy They look great! I know what you mean. For a few weeks prior to the wedding, we had packages coming daily. So, we are having amazon package withdrawal after the wedding @@ashhtayy They look great! I know what you mean. For a few weeks prior to the wedding, we had packages coming daily. So, we are having amazon package withdrawal after the wedding

@@racht33 I ordered sunglasses from Ebay. They came from China, so they took a while, but we had plenty of time when we ordered them so it wasn't an issue. They were reasonably priced too!

@@TLynn3123 Since the ship arrives at 10am, you can probably arrange to get your hair and make-up done on the ship prior to arrival. Then, you can get off the ship in normal clothes and just get into your wedding dress at the wedding venue. This will allow you to maintain some surprise for your groom. I think it would be difficult to visit Dunn's Falls after your wedding. When we visited Jamaica last year to do site visits, we went to Dunn's Falls and just took pictures, but didn't climb the falls. It felt like a waste of time and money to do this. So, unless you plan to change out of your dress or do a trash the dress at Dunn's Falls, I don't know if it would be worth it to visit. You might be able to do a short island tour and visit another waterfall to take pictures. You want to make sure that you plan to arrive back to the port at least an hour prior to scheduled departure because "all aboard" is usually 30 minutes prior to the posted departure time and you want to leave some cushion. We brought a photographer with us. So, when we got back to the ship, my husband and I went around the ship for at least an hour with our photographer taking pictures. It was a very fun and memorable time for us!! We had our receeption back on the ship because it allowed us to focus on the ceremony while we were on the island. Although, since you are going into Ocho Rios and planning to get married at a beach near there, you may have time to do at least a mini-reception (cake, appetizer,and food) at the venue.

@deecol- Congrats at finally being packed and ready to go! I am so happy for you that you are having a relaxing last evening. Have a wonderful trip and a memorable wedding!!

@@TLynn3123 What time does the ship arrive in Ocho Rios? What time is your ceremony? Do you plan to get ready on the ship or in Jamaica?

@@acw271011, @@deecol, @ashhtayy- Thank you for the well wishes We had an amazing wedding and a wonderful cruise!! Here are a few pictures from the wedding day at Firefly in Jamaica. Venue and ceremony set-up Groom and Officiant at Altar Bride Walking In Bride and Groom More to come once I have gotten settled back in and gone through things.

@@acw271011, @@deecol, @ashhtayy- Thank you for the well wishes We had an amazing wedding and a wonderful cruise!! Here are a few pictures from the wedding day at Firefly in Jamaica. Venue and ceremony set-up Groom and Officiant at Altar Bride Walking In Bride and Groom More to come once I have gotten settled back in and gone through things.

@@TLynn3123 Congrats on your engagement and the decision to have a cruise wedding! I JUST got back from my wedding cruise yesterday We are veey happy with our decision to do a wedding cruise! We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas and got married at Firefly in Jamaica. We planned the ceremony through Tropical Weddings Jamaica instead of the cruiseline. Here is a link to my planning thread: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/topic/79586-cruisebride2016-cruise-wedding-planning-thread/. Based on your itinerary, I would recommend you get married in Jamaica. Grand Cayman is a tendered port, so the weather is often too bad and the port gets skipped, therefore you wouldn't have your wedding if that happened. Please let me know if you have specific questions and I would be happy to answer.

Right now, I am sitting on the airplane about to head to Florida (where we get on the cruise). They put my wedding dress in the coat closet with no problem. Fortunately, my dress bag folds in half and can be carried over my shoulder, so it was already folded. The closet is short, so it fit perfectly with it folded in half. **Once again, pics are sideways, sorry!

Well, we are pretty much all packed and ready to go. WOW!! Can't believe it is already time to leave for our trip. My advice to future brides. Take 1-2 days off prior to leaving and try not to plan anything for those days. Leave it as time to finish anything that is still left to do. The only thing I scheduled was my nail appointment. This allowed me plenty of time to finish everything without getting stressed out. If I had my days jam packed with appointments, I would be totally stressed out right now trying to finish all the last minute stuff. My day has not been stressful at all and we will be able to go to bed early since we have an early flight tomorrow. We are premium members with United, so we are allowed two checked bags each that are upto 70lbs each. We have 3 bags that are around 60lbs each and a 4th bag that is a duffel bag and around 20lbs. On top of that, we each have a rolling carry-on, personal item (backpack/purse) and wedding attire (dress or tux). We are flying first class, so hopefully they will not give us any trouble with everything we are bringing onboard. Our rolling bags have important wedding items, so it would be horrible if we had to check them. Now, I am off to bed and will wake up in a few hours for our flight to Florida. Hopefully, I can contain my excitement enough to sleep!!