cruisebride2016

@@danielleesme I attended a wedding in Riviera Maya 3 weeks ago and they gave us personalized M&Ms that were individually wrapped. My friend and I were talking about wedding stuff during their wedding week and she never complained about getting the M&Ms there, but I didn't specifically ask about them.

We have 100 days until we get onto our wedding cruise!! So, here are some updates on the planning process: WEDDING COLORS We have chosen Turquoise Blue and White as our wedding colors. You can see the color of the ribbon that will be used on the chairs during the ceremony. FLOWERS We have decided to go with Lily of Angeles from Etsy and get silk flowers. We really liked one of the bouquets and just want to make a few adjustments to it, so we thought it would be easier to have the original creator recreate it rather than having someone else try to do it. It will be a combination of these 2 bouquets. ROSE CEREMONY We will be doing a modified rose ceremony during the ceremony. Normally, the bride and groom exchange red roses or the bride gives the groom the vase and the groom gives the bride a rose. Instead, we will make it a bit more like a sand ceremony. We will have each family give us a white flower, then Manny and I will each put a red rose in. We have been talking with MyDaileyCreations on Etsy about a custom vase for the ceremony. The attached picture is just a mock-up of the vase. We are still trying to pick a saying. We have it narrowed down to three: On sea or land...anchored forever For the hearts treasure together we set sail We're navigating to the shores of the heart TOASTING GLASSES We are planning to get champagne or wine glasses to use for toasting. We might get ones that are matching to the vase (at least the picture of the cruise ship with out name and date) or we might get ones off Etsy. CAKE TOPPER We have ordered a custom cake topper from EnchantedYou54449 on Etsy that we think will be perfect for our cruise wedding! Attached is the picture from Etsy, but it will be customized for our ship and to look like us. Well, I think this is the major updates of what we have been doing. Hope everyone has a very happy 2016!!

@@calgarybride2015 I sent Bloom Bridal an email and submitted an order form and haven't heard anything back from them. I reached out to Lily of Angeles (Etsy) and Plumerias Wedding Flower Boutique and both of them said that they could get me flowers before April with no problem. With the holiday I will probably wait until next week to make a decision, but it is nice to at least know I have some options. I would still love opinions on these two companies if anyone has used them.

@@deecol Thanks for the suggestions of Michaels. Yes, we do have them here. Unfortunately, I am not crafty at all, so making my own bouquet is out of the question. I did some more research on this website tonight and found suggestions of Lily of Angeles (on Etsy) and Plumerias Wedding Flower Boutique. Has anyone used either of these vendors?

Well, everything worked out ok with our cabin release with our new travel agent. From the communication I have had with her, I actually feel she will be more on top of all the details than the previous travel agent. So, I am looking forward to working with her. FLOWERS Initially, I had planned to order flowers through our wedding coordinator in Jamaica. As I talked with my fiance, he was really hoping to get a blue flower for his boutonniere since our wedding color is blue. I think it might be hard to guarantee that we would get a blue flower in Jamaica. Also, since we will be going back onto a cruise, it might be hard to bring our flowers back on board or back into the US. Therefore, we are looking into getting real touch flowers so that we would be able to keep them and get exactly what we want. I looked through some posts on here and found good reviews about Bloom Bridal. Their website says they are not accepting short-notice orders. My wedding is in April, so I think it might be considered short-notice for them. I emailed on Sunday to see if they would be able to do a bouquet and boutonniere for us, but haven't heard back yet. Does anyone else have other recommendations for real touch flowers?

Well, I don't have my planning thread up to date for where I am in the planning process, but I have had recent drama, so I am going to skip to current issues. We have been working with a travel agent to book our wedding cruise for April 2016 and have 31 people booked. Luckily, a few months ago there was a really good deal through the cruise line that was lower than our group rate (and fortunately the travel agent was able to get that rate directly through Royal), so most of our guests booked during this promotion. Our cabin release date was December 4th (yesterday). This means that for guests to get our group rate, they needed to book by that date. Otherwise, any rooms we had on hold that did not have a deposit and names would be released back to the cruiseline. And, if anyone else wants to book after this date, it will be at the current rate offered by Royal, which is higher than our group rate. Well, the drama is that I had sent an email (our usual form of communication) to my travel agent on Monday (Nov 30th) to verify our bookings and transfer a booking for someone who had booked directly through Royal. Usually, she responds within 24 hours, but this time she didn't. I lost track of time and didn't notice she hadn't respond until Thursday evening, so I sent another email. When I hadn't heard from her by noon on Friday (our release date), I finally took the time to call the travel agency. I entered her extension and someone else answered the phone. She informed me that my travel agent was no longer with the company and they were in the process of distributing her work. I was shocked and disappointed because I was worried the fact they dropped the ball and didn't inform me sooner would negatively impact us. Oh, and the other problem is that the travel agency is located on the East Coast of the US and I am on the West Coast (i.e 3 hour time difference) and I called during my lunch time, which was 3-4pm East Coast time and they leave the office at 5pm. Therefore, the person I talked to had very little time to contact the cruiseline and take care of the last requests that I had. She called my back while I was working and couldn't answer so she left a voicemail saying that she had completed all my requests and that she would send me an email with the details. Oddly, I never got an email. I tried calling her back shortly after she left the voicemail to ask a few more questions but she didn't answer, so I left a message and never got a phone call back. Now, our cabin release date has passed and I am left not knowing exactly where our booking stands. Like I said, luckily most people had booked early, so we don't have a bunch of guests scrambling to get a booking at the deadline date, but it is still frustrating to have no one assigned to help me at the time of my deadline. I just needed to vent a bit, so thanks for being here for me to vent!!

Sorry it has been almost 2 months since I have added any updates. My addition today won't bring us up to my current status, but it will bring us closer. I'll try to post more sooner than 2 months Venue Unfortunately, my travel agent wasn’t familiar with venues in Jamaica, so I had to do my own research. One problem is that we only need the venue for a few hours since we are getting off a cruise. Some of the venues I found either required you to stay at the resort in order to have a ceremony or you had to pay for the entire day, which was too expensive. I contacted a few different wedding coordinators in Jamaica in January 2015 for an April 2016 wedding. One coordinator told me to contact them again once the wedding was less than a year away and another didn’t respond. I ended up going with Tropical Weddings Jamaica, which has gotten wonderful reviews on this website! Almarie was very quick to respond to emails, which I appreciate. My fiancé and I ended up going to Jamaica in February 2015 and looked at 3 venues-Ocho Rios Oceanfront Terrace Deck, Ocho Rios Beachfront Garden Gazebo, and Grande Oceanfront. They were all great options, but the Grande Oceanfront is exactly what I had always envisioned for my wedding day! Wedding Website Once we had booked the cruise and the venue, we created a wedding website. We had this ready before we sent out invitations because we wanted to direct everyone to the website with all the details. We didn’t need it to be anything special, just wanted it to be able to get across the information we needed. We used mywedding.com and have been happy with it. We made it private and provided the guests with a password. Save the Date/Invitations We chose to save some money and use our save the dates as the invitations because all of our guests were already aware of the wedding, so we just needed to give them the dates and the link to the wedding website. Our travel agent provided us with 100 free save the dates, which were postcards, so we used these. We bought envelopes so that the postcard wouldn’t get damaged in the mail. We mailed these out in April 2015. I have attached a picture of the front of the save the date. On the back, we had the dates for the cruise and the website address and password.

You are very welcome!! I think we can really help each other through this process Wow, 65 rsvp is great!! Too bad only 25 have committed. What is your deadine? We invited about 100 people and have 30 people booked. Our room release is December 4th, but guests could still book after that if the cruise has availability. We only have about 4 people that want to book, but are still working out the details. We are not dealing directly with the cruise line. All our guests are booking through our travel agent. What do you mean by "unknown"? My fiance and I did a cruise on the ship we will be on for the wedding cruise and we also did the itinerary so that we knew what to expect as far as the ship and ports go. We also talked with the staff on the ship and asked them questions and figured out how they could help us. For example, we asked if they would allow us to drop off my dress in our room before the room is ready, instead of carrying it around the ship for hours. Since we have a suite on our cruise, we can arrange to meet the concierge on the dock and he/she will take us to our room to drop off our stuff early. We have cruised quite a bit, so we are able to answer a lot of the normal questions our guests have.

Hello @@Samilynn I am getting married while in port in Jamaica on April 13, 2016. We will be sailing on Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas. Are you getting married on the ship or in port? Are you working with a travel agent to book your guests? How many guests are you expecting? Let me know if you have any questions for me.

@@deecol Thank you! I am trying to be realistic and work hard! That is great news about your dress! I bought my dress in March and haven't tried it on since then. I feel like I have lost a few inches, but not sure. Maybe I should schedule a fitting just to check the progress. I did my new workout tonight and it definitely got me sweating!! I'm glad I went because we had a lunch meeting with a catered Mexican meal today and I ate more than I should have, so I had some extra calories to burn off

Finally found time to update. My game plan for the cruise definitely helped!! Usually, I gain 5 pounds in a week, but this time I only gained 2.5 pounds. My fiance and I used the stairs majority of the time, even going up 9 flights a few times! I think this made a huge difference. I also stuck to no bread with dinner and looking over the menu ahead of time. unfortunately, I could have done better last week after returning from the trip. I was stressed with catching up on work after vacation and allowed myself to eat out more often than I should have instead of cooking at home. I am starting to get back on track on this week. I skipped my workout last Tuesday, but got to the gym on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Today, I signed up for the new exercise program that I tried with my coworker a few weeks ago. I will go to this class once a week (starting tomorrow) and continue my regular exercise routine three times a week. My goals will be similar to prior to vacation with tracking daily on MyFitnessPal, staying within my calories, going to the gym four times this week, and doing quick exercises at home on the nights I don't go to the gym. Ladies, keep up the great work! We just need to take one day at a time

@vancouverpetunia- Good point about looking at the menus! We plan to eat in the Mexican restaurant, so I already looked at that menu and decided what I will get. I will have access to the dinner menu earlier in the day before actually going to the dining room, so I will look it over and decide on my meal before I get there and let my hunger override good judgement!

Overall, I have done pretty good with exercise. I tried the new workout with my co-worker last week and I enjoyed it. I also went to the gym last Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. And, I went to the gym tonight even though I am going on vacation in 2 days. Normally, this close to vacation, I am too busy between work and packing that I don't make it to the gym, so it made me really happy to go tonight! I haven't done as well as far as food goes. At least I am tracking my calories and have tracked on My Fitness Pal for 32 days in a row. But, this past week I was above my goal pretty much every day. Fortunately, most days it is only 100-200 calories, but over the weekend I cheated and it was higher. Hopefully, my exercise over the weekend will balance out the food Now, I am in survival mode for the next week or so. I leave on Saturday, then get on a 7 day cruise on Sunday. I have already thought about my game plan. My fiance and I plan to walk the track every day and take the stairs. Also, I am going to skip the bread at dinner and try to choose healthy foods or my splurge foods will be things I can't get at home. I am going to bring instant oatmeal for breakfast in the room, instead of getting bagels or other higher calorie options. And, I bought healthier snacks (low sodium jerky, dried fruit, trail mix) as compared to my normal jelly beans and gummy worms. Usually, I throw all efforts out the window during vacation, so hopefully being more aware will keep the weight gain to no more than 3 pounds, instead of my normal 5.

@vancouverpetunia- Great job at making it to the gym the 3 times you committed to!! Even though it is disappointing to see the number of the scale, you are making the efforts you need to in order to get where you want to be. Keep pushing yourself and we are here to support you!

Haha, that is funny and pretty accurate!

That is great! Each thing that gets checked off the to-do list feels relieving.

@Wafflesmom- A long distance relationship has been quite challenging, but at least it gave us a reason to travel We enjoyed Epic, especially when we were single because they have the studios that are perfect for single travelers. @vancouverpetunia- When we started talking about marriage, I began my research and came across cruise weddings. I was immediately interested, but wasn't sure what he would think. Not much later, he was talking about things he was looking at and mentioned a cruise wedding. So, I admitted that I was looking at the same thing and we were both excited that we came to an agreement on a starting point for the wedding. It is great that you guys are also coming full circle also!

I love our story also. After the cruise, my advice to single people was to do what you enjoy (cruising for me) and you might find someone with similar interests. A long distance relationship has been challenging, but we have made it work by talking pretty much every day and seeing each other regularly. Spoiler alert...he will moving to California in less than 2 months, so I am so excited!!! @acw271011- Thank you! I have cruised Carnival before and enjoyed it. We just felt it wasn't the best fit for our wedding If you have trouble with seasickness, you should look into getting scopalamine patches beforehand so that you don't have to worry about taking dramamine. Luckily, out of all the nights I have cruised, there has only been 1 night where the motion got to me. @calgarybride2015- I still love my ring, so he made a good decision to let me pick it out! Thank you!! Cruising is so much fun! I love that I can take my luggage on the ship, then unpack and not have to worry about moving it again until the end of the trip. And, we are able to visit multiple locations within a short period of time. Instead of spending time in an airport, train, or car, we are partying away while the captain takes us to the next location You can always try a short cruise to test it out and see if you like it. I recommend getting a room that is as close to the middle (both front/back and up/down) to decrease the motion in your room.

Good news- I pretty much achieved my goals last week by working out at the gyms 4 times and doing exercise at home on 2 of the 3 other nights. I took Friday night off, but that is usually my cheat night anyway, so I don't feel guilty about taking 1 night off. Bad news- I didn't lose any weight. Although, I did not gain any either. Hopefully, it means I was losing inches instead of losing pounds. Goals for this week- Try a new workout tomorrow night with a co-worker (she wasn't at work today, so couldn't confirm, but I plan to go whether or not she goes). Still work out 4 times this week and keep up my home routine. Track calories daily in MFP and stay under 1200 calories, even if I work out that day.

@@acw271011 Thanks for your thoughts! I'm not quite sure what we need to get done either. We plan to get snacks, wine and water to bring on the cruise, and maybe pick up appetizers for a cocktail hour that first night. Also, we will need to put together the out of town bags either in Fort Lauderdale or the first day of the cruise. I think I just needed some back up from others to convince my fiance that flying on Friday will give us plenty of time

We are trying to decide on our flights. We will be flying to Fort Lauderdale prior to getting on our cruise. Do you ladies think it would be better to have more time at home or in Fort Lauderdale? I plan for Tuesday to be my last day of work. We will fly on Thursday or Friday and arrive in Fort Lauderdale around 10pm, then our guests will arrive Saturday evening and we will get on the cruise on Sunday. Would it be better to have Wednesday and Thursday at home and about a half day to go shopping and do last minute things in Fort Lauderdale or would it be better to fly on Thursday, then have all day Friday to get things done?

There is not much out there for cruise brides, so I wanted to create a thread that might be helpful to anyone planning a wedding cruise. How We Met In 2013, I was interested in a singles Mediterranean cruise, but initially, it was sold out. Luckily, when I checked back a few weeks later, there was availability, so I booked right away. On the other hand, Manny was looking at a trip to Crete, but couldn't find a flight. So, he booked the Mediterranean cruise instead. When we stepped onto Norwegian's Epic in June 2013 with a group of 70 single people, we thought we were just going on vacation and meeting new friends. We talked a few times throughout the week, but the sparks really flew once we danced together during the Hot White Party. We got more than we bargained for when we met each other on this life altering trip! Our Relationship Since Manny has been living in Ireland and I live in California, our entire relationship has been long distance. Fortunately, we both have a lot of vacation days each year and have been able to see each other about every 6 weeks. We meet in different locations each time, including multiple cruises. Over the past 2 years, we have explored 25 countries together. The Ring We had started talking about marriage. Manny decided that he would rather me have a ring I loved instead of being surprised. So, he gave me a budget and I got to go shopping. Remember, he is still in Ireland, so he wasn't involved in the shopping process at all. I went to Shane Co. with a girlfriend where I was able to select a band, then choose the center stone. Of course, I checked with Manny and since I had stayed within budget, I got his approval! When Manny came out to California for Thanksgiving, we went together to pick up the final ring. The Proposal In November 2014, we went to San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving. I knew he had the engagement ring, but didn't know when he would be asking. The day after Thanksgiving, we went sightseeing in the city. We wanted to ride the cable car, but a portion of the line was closed due to the tree lighting in Union Square. So, we tried to find another place to get on the cable car. After walking up and down the hills from the Market turntable to the Hyde turntable, Manny gave up on the idea of getting onto the cable car, and got down on one knee and asked me to marry him next to the cable cars at the turntable. Deciding on a Cruise Since Manny and I met on a cruise, it was easy for us to decide we wanted to go on a cruise for our wedding. But, selecting the actual cruise was probably the hardest part of the planning so far. I think it took us a few weeks to make this decision. We preferred to do this portion on our own just by looking at the cruise line websites. There are multiple factors to consider, such as dates, cruise line, itinerary, and ship. Here is some insight into our thought process in which cruise would be the best choice. Types of Cruise Weddings When it comes to a wedding cruise, you can either do the wedding on the cruise ship or in port. Ship wedding on embarkation day. The benefit of this type of wedding is that guests can come on for only the wedding and don’t have to sail with you. Of course, the guests who aren’t sailing have to get off prior to the ship leaving. This is great for people with guests that could easily drive to the port, but that wasn’t the case for us. Also, most reviews made it sound like it is a very hectic day because the group (especially the bride) doesn’t have much time to get onto the ship and get ready prior to the ceremony. Therefore, we concluded this wouldn’t work for us. Ship wedding at sea. I had always envisioned the wedding on a cliff overlooking the ocean, so I knew the wedding chapel on the ship or even on the deck did not fit my vision. Port wedding. I had searched online for venues with the view I was looking for and I fell in love with Firefly in Jamaica. Therefore, this is where we focused our energy. All our guests will got off the ship in port, then travel to the venue for the ceremony, then return back to the ship later that same day. Date We got engaged in November 2014 and knew we wanted to have at least 1 year to plan the wedding. Also, we expected to get married in the Caribbean and hurricane season is May to November. We didn’t want to ask our guests to travel during the holiday season in November or December. And, we felt guests might find it difficult to pay for a cruise after the holidays, so ruled out January. Since February and March are busy travel times due to spring breaks, we finally settled on April 2016. We did not care what our actual wedding date is, but if you are set on a date, you will need to be more flexible about the location of the wedding in order to make sure you get married on that date. Cruise Line Even though Manny and I met on Norwegian, our preferred cruise line is Royal, so we focused on Royal cruises. We did also look at Carnival because their cruises were cheaper, but we felt the mature atmosphere of Royal was more fitting for our guests than the party atmosphere of Carnival. Length of Cruise At first, we thought about a 3 or 4 day cruise so that our guests wouldn’t have to take as much time off. But, once we realized these cruises usually went to 1-2 ports and had 1 day at sea, we thought the guests would feel like the cruise was a waste of time since most of it would be spent on the wedding. Also, since our guests would be flying to the port, they would need 1 day of travel prior and 1 day after. Therefore, they would end up taking off the same amount of time from work for a 6-7 day cruise as a 3-4 day cruise because the longer cruise would include weekend days. Itinerary There are multiple ways to approach this. I think you have to figure out on which factor is most important to you- ports, price or ship. · Ports Visited I knew that Jamaica was my favorite location, so we started with cruises that went to Jamaica, but did look at other ports also. One big consideration is whether the port is docked or tendered. I had read too many stories and have personally experienced a tendered port being missed due to rough seas, so we didn’t want to take a chance of planning a port wedding in a location that was tendered. · Embarkation port For a Caribbean cruise that went to Jamaica, we could sail out of Galveston (Texas), Port Canaveral (Florida), or Fort Lauderdale (Florida). We realized that both Galveston and Port Canaveral were at least 1 hour away from the airport, which would add the challenge of transportation from the airport to the port. We felt it would be easiest to sail from Fort Lauderdale since the airport is very close to the port. Ship Since we had it narrowed down to a Royal Caribbean cruise that left from Fort Lauderdale and sailed to Jamaica, we had 3 ships to choose from- Navigator of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, and Oasis of the Seas. Final Decision Since Allure and Oasis are some of the newest ships, the price was much higher. We thought the higher price might limit whether some of our guests would be able to join us. Also, the cruises on Allure and Oasis were 7 days, whereas the Navigator was a 6 day cruise. The 6 day cruise allows guests to travel on Saturday and get on the cruise on Sunday, then fly home either the same day as disembarkation (Saturday) or stay one more night before flying home on Sunday. We felt the shorter and cheaper cruise would be the best option for our guests. Things We Learned Now that we are actually planning the wedding, one of the negative aspects of our cruise is that we are docked in Jamaica from 7am to 4pm. This means that I will have to be up very early in order to get ready in time. Not every factor can be perfect, so I think making the entire trip better for the guests is more important than me being inconvenienced for a short time. Also, some countries, such as Jamaica, do not observe daylight savings. From November to March, they are the same time as Eastern time, but from April to October they are 1 hour behind. Many cruise ships stay on Eastern time (“ship time”) during this time of the year, instead of switching to the time in each port (“local time”). Unfortunately, this depends on the captain of the ship. Therefore, it makes it difficult to make plans on the island because we are not 100% sure of the time we will be arriving and leaving. Booking the Cruise/Group Booking Benefits Since we expected to meet the minimum for a group booking of 16 guests, we elected to have a travel agent set-up a group booking for us. Manny and I wanted to lock-in a rate to know guests would not pay higher than that price, so we paid a $200 refundable deposit per room. You can hold as many rooms as you would like. We will get our money back once all the guest deposits are paid or unbooked rooms are released, which will be in December. If the price of the cruise is lower than our group rate at the time a guest is booking, they will get the lower rate. Or, if the price drops after guests have booked, we can contact the travel agent and she is able to reprice those rooms (and we have already done this a few times). Therefore, our group price just guarantees the max price. Our guests are contacting the travel agent directly. She is able to answer any of their questions and is booking their cruise. Once they are confirmed, she informs me so that I can keep track of who is coming. For each 16 full paying guests, we will earn money (called tour conductor credits). So far, it looks like we will be getting about $600 per 16 guests. You can use this to pay toward someone’s cabin, keep it as onboard credit yourself, or disperse it amongst the guests. The details of how this is figured out are confusing, so I won’t go into the specifics at this time. I can explain if anyone has questions and will probably better understand once we get our final head count. Each cruise also has group amenity points (GAP). I know you get these if you book through a travel agent, but not sure if you would get them if you created a group directly through the cruise line. The number of credits depends on the sailing, so some have no points and others may have 8. It seems 4 is the average. Travel agents are able to get this information ahead of time, so it could help in determining which cruise would provide more points. These points can be used to give your guests a bottle of wine per stateroom, cocktail hour, onboard credit, etc. For example, our cruise has 6 points, so we are hoping to pay for a dinner at a specialty restaurant (4 points) and give $25 onboard credit per stateroom (2 points). Travel agents don’t have to give you all the points, so it would be something to discuss in the beginning before signing a contract. Now that the cruise was booked, it was time to move on to planning the actual wedding, but I will leave that for another post J

If you plan to travel in the next few months, you might be able to earn status with an airline. I regularly travel with United, so I will be Premier Gold by the end of the year, which will allow me and a companion (ie fiance) to have 2 bags each that are up to 75 lbs each, therefore we can check up to 300 pounds for free between the two of us

I have been watching this thread since it started and it motivated me to get back on track, so I figured I should finally contribute to it. A few years ago, I was able to lose 50 pounds with healthy eating and exercise. Fortunately, I have kept it off, but could still stand to lose another 15-20 pounds. When I got engaged in November 2014, I expected to use the 18 months before my wedding to slowly lose the weight. Well, now it is September 2015 and I weigh the same as I did in November. I will lose 5 pounds, then go on a vacation and regain it, then lose it again and repeat with the next vacation. In the past 2 weeks, I have made sure to track my calories daily with My Fitness Pal (longest streak in years) and gone to the gym 3-4 times a week. I am proud to announce that I have already lost 3 pounds! Now, my next vacation is in 3 weeks, so I am going to work harder during it to not regain all the weight I have lost by then. For this week, my goal is to go to the gym 4 times. On the days I don’t go to the gym, I plan to do a 5 minute ab workout and 10 minute resistance band workout at home. I will continue to track my calories and aim to stay within my recommended calories. Thank you for starting this thread and keep up all the great work ladies!!

@tlwarren- I ordered those anchor bags from Oriental Trading. I was surprised by how thin they are. I want my guests to be able to use the bags at the beach during the trip and they wouldn't be able to use these bags for that. They are great if you are just looking for a bag to use to present gifts, but not thick enough to use as a beach bag. The other caution that I think is mentioned in the review on the website, but the design is only on one side, the other side is plain blue.