DustinandStacy2015

Oh yeah I forgot one important thing!!!!!

Turns out a Cruise wedding gave us more then we thought!

We are now expecting in January!!! :) Ohhhh more cruise memories to come!

I haven't been back in awhile! I hope all of you guys are doing well!

As for the dress on the plane my only piece of advice:

Carry the darn thing and look exhausted. LOL I carried it on (and through the airport...bleh....) and when I got on the plane the flight attendant said, "ahh let me take that for you and I'll put it in the closet, and why didn't you board with the people that needed extra time silly!"

I'm guessing she meant because it was heavy, so take full advantage of getting on the plane early to make sure that dress gets on safely.

If you're looking for an amazing rehearsal dinner or anything Brano's in Cocoa Beach was AMAZING. We got our own private room, amazing food....my family still talks about it a month later. Reasonably priced as well. We highly recommend it.

We are working on sending out our at home reception invitations. The problem I have is..... We are legally married now and my new last name (in a week or two) will be different now. So what do we write on the invitations for the reception in September? Do I still use my maiden name or would we just use the new name?

Absolutely beautiful! Congratulations

Thank You! The Vista huh?! I bet that ship will be absolutely beautiful. We had some ups and downs on the Valor but with the new ship coming out we may need to check her out! I've been following John Heald's blog and he posts a lot about her. Have you sailed RC or any other cruises within the last 3-5 years that were good to try?!

There is truth in the "funk" feeling when you come back home. :( I have felt super sad about everything ending so quickly. It's like you plan for this for a year or more and then in two weeks, it's over just like that.

Luckily we have our at home reception in September so it helps I can lengthen everything out that way but still not the same.

So the question of the day is:

Where will we be cruising to next?!

Our flight coming home was delayed 6 hours so the two of us each received a flight voucher for 100.00. So now we have the excuse we HAVE to take another cruise because they expire within a year. We have done Carnival now twice so I think we are looking into Royal Carribbean. We don't even know where to start with them. Any tips on what to look for?

Stacy!! So freaking awesome! It looks like you had a blast (I too will be getting' my groove on at the club in my dress!)! I'm SO glad that everything went perfectly for you. Love all of the pics!!

Thanks girl! :) It was so much fun wearing the dress the whole day, people remembered us through-out the whole cruise and wanted to party with the wedding party! We had a great time. It went by all too fast. :(

beautiful pictures and a gorgeous bride! Love that you danced in your dress all night, I will be doing the same on Liberty in exactly 2 weeks!

 

Love the "anchor" details, I have chosen the same.

 

Congratulations!

Thank you! We found that anchor ribbon at Michael's the day before for only a dollar! I loved it. Good luck on your wedding day! It really does go by way too fast.

I posted our review in the 2015 Brides forum. Check it out if you wish and ask any questions needed! Thanks!

I forgot to add:

Once we got on the ship for the muster drill we stood by our station and one of the staff members saw me in distress over standing by a bunch of people in my dress so they let us stand by them until everyone filed in then they let us file in at the end. So just ASK!

WOW! We had an AMAZING adventure ladies and gents. We just got back home after a two week vacation. It was seriously amazing. There were a few little things here and there but NOTHING got in the way of our wedding. Here is my review fwew...might take awhile:

We (the hubby and I) flew into Orlando airport on Thursday, April 9th with my sister in law and one of our groomsmen. We checked one big suitcase and had two carry on suitcases and my dress. I was originally told that my dress was considered a carry on but no one gave me troubles when I walked on with that and my little suitcase and purse. The flight attendant saw my struggle lugging that huge thing around the airport and took it off my hands and hung it in a closet. She told me we were lucky to have a new plane because most don't have closets. So don't bank on having one, otherwise we were told we would have had to just lay it across luggage in the carry on space. Luckily one of our groomsmen cares a lot about his clothes so he brought a steamer!!! (which turned out to be a perfect thing after carrying that thing around for days) We rented a van for us for the two days prior to the wedding and drove to check in at our hotel in Orlando. We stayed at the Avanti Resort by Universal and it was a nice middle of the road hotel. We spent some time at the pool and went to Universal Islands of Adventure on Friday. (the Harry Potter ride was AWESOME!) Anyway, I'll try not to trail off too much but we did A LOT in two weeks.

Saturday morning we drove out to Cocoa Beach where we stayed at the International Palms right on the beach. This was a middle of the road hotel as well. Not too cheap, not to expensive. The reviews weren't great but we found it to be perfect for a one night stay. The brides room and a separate grooms room were two story lofts (they were really nice) The only negative things were that our block of rooms, (12 total) were all really far apart and this was a huge resort so it kind of stunk walking back and forth a lot. But other than that, they had a restaurant/bar on site which kept our guests busy and it was close to everything (including a Walmart, Michaels and a mall about 8 miles away) While the family and friends partied (28 guests in Florida, 21 crusing) I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off grabbing last minute details. I picked up water bottles (which I had bought labels for on a cheap china wholesale site) and flowers from the store for the ceremony which turned out to work amazing!!! (we decided not to buy flowers from our vendor because it was very expensive and we weren't going to have them long enough for it to be worth it.) Luckily my aunt does flowers and all I had to do was buy fresh flowers and accessories and she made them look beautiful! (picture will be below) saved a bunch of money that way and they were better then some flower shops I've seen! We made sure everything was finished the night before and by midnight it was storming...URGH! We were nervous to say the least for the next day's weather.

Soooooo Sunday (WEDDING DAY) The girls drove to the salon: Cocoa Beach Spa in Cocoa Beach. They had two ladies working on our hair. Both very nice girls but one had more experience then the other so she ended up doing most of our hair. Everything turned out really great. Initially I went in wanting my hair to be down....um NOPE! Not in Florida. Way too humid and hot. I ended up really loving my hair and thought everyone turned out very nice looking! Oww Oww! The way they did pricing was a little ridiculous though. They said every updo started around 55.00 but then each girls hair was "judged" by how long it took and how hard it was (none of which were difficult) then price was just given via email how much the cards were charged. The cheapest with gratuity was 75 then mine was 105 and mine was not much more difficult then any other but I digress because honestly it needed to be done and everyone turned out beautiful so it wasn't much of an issue. Just be aware if you use them that pricing is a little strange. We did love their space, they had a place to make your own mimosas, snacks and bring in whatever you want. We all did our own make up and they didn't mind us doing it in their salon even though they offered make up services which I thought was really nice of them.

After we got our hair done we all went back, sat around for about an hour and finally it was TIME! The wedding went by so fast!

We hired Elite Beach Weddings out of Florida. Pam did an AWESOME job making sure everything was just right. (music, timing, ceremony agenda) We LOVED having our wedding on the beach near Port Canaveral, it was so worth it. The only downside is ALL Florida beaches are public so you can't guarantee no one in the backgrounds of your pictures. But this seemed obvious to me and we just hoped the best. Turns out it was a busy beach day but oh well! I have a few friends who can edit the backgrounds. Other then that everything went really smooth. IT DIDN'T RAIN! The skies were beautiful but VERY HOT! Lol. We were sweaty.... :/

Once we were done with the ceremony we went back to the hotel, checked out and got on a shuttle (Happy Hour Shuttle Service) It was 6 bucks per person. We were whisked away to Port Canaveral to board the Carnival Valor!

We stayed in our wedding attire because it made it way more fun. We actually wore them the whole night! Once on the ship we went up to the Lido deck for the party right away and the lovely DJ (which we end up getting close to) announced us as we walked in! It was like our very own huge reception! Everyone cheered and congratulated us, it was awesome! We danced on the deck for awhile and met up with our family and friends (21 people) at 5:15pm near the restaurant. We did the YOUR TIME dining with everyone which made it easier to sit by each other. The first night we all sat together and we made our own head table with one of the tables being the wedding party and we ate dinner and of course people were doing the glass tapping thing to make us kiss when all of the sudden the whole restaurant started doing it and it felt like one huge reception just for us. We felt famous. ;) and actually the rest of the cruise we were stopped many times by people saying, "there's the cute wedding couple!"

We ended up gambling at the casino and going to a few bars after dinner. We bought our wedding party drinks and that was a far better option for us then getting a package through Carnival (they wanted to tell us what times we had to do and charged us 900 for just drinks so we decided to just go with the flow and hope for the best) We only spent about 300 on the people who wanted to drink so it worked out well for us. We ended the night at the nightclub with everyone else, no private party. DJ Electra (Erica) was amazing. She really knew how to make our night. She played a few song requests for us during the whole night when we realized we never had a "first dance" she stopped the nightclub to play us a slow song so we could have a first dance. It was romantic, sweet and most of all genuine. We knew that if we wanted this we should have booked her and paid her but we didn't end up booking a reception through Carnival so we knew we were just taking chances but she ended up making us feel SOOOO special. I tried to give her a tip the next day but she wouldn't take it. Our night was magical. Everything we had hoped it would be. I know that we ended up doing it kind of out of order or not what we had originally thought but the reason why I am being so specific is that when I started this thread I knew that there were possibilities of doing different options when it comes to your wedding. But we never thought we would be able to fully do it on our own. Carnival just wasn't working with us in certain things (I'm picky and wanted it perfect) and since we were traveling far it just wasn't worth risking it. So you can be specific in your needs and wants and do NOT have to do it all through the cruise lines to make it happen. If you are the type of Bride who wants to give up most of the control then a complete cruise wedding might be for you. If you are the kind of gal who wants to make most of the decisions yourself, then hopefully my review will help you get an idea of what you can do. With that though, I ran into a lot of stress. I wanted to make sure that I didn't forget anything. (Which made me realize after I should have hired an assistant. LOL) So there are definite ups and downs to doing it either way. We were blessed with many friends and family members there to help us and everything went pretty smooth. The major complaint (which some of you will think I'm just a whiner but this really made me mad)

My husby and I went down to the Love Game (newlywed show) about 30 minutes early to sit up front and be ready to get chosen because we were married a day prior. If you don't know what this is, it's basically the newlywed game but they pick a couple who's been married the longest, a middle of the road couple and a newlywed couple within the last three days.

Well our Cruise Director was not very nice. He asked the audience who was married within the last three days and our hands went right up, he looked at the couple right in front of him (he talked to them earlier in the evening because the girl was ditsy and giggling about her proposal story in Disney World) and the ditsy blond was like we were married on Saturday!!!! So he says well dear that was 4 days ago but its ok COME ON UP! I was shocked. First of all we were the ONLY couple who had our hands raised and he obviously didn't follow his own rules. I was VERY upset. This was the one event we wanted to participate in and half of our guests came down just to watch it. How bogus. We also dealt with some major issues on our honeymoon with the rental car and random stuff but that has nothing to do with the cruise so I'll spare you. LOL. As for the cruise itself, we had an amazing time. I'm glad we did our own thing because it seemed more relaxed. Either way you do it, just find what works best for you and your future husband/wife because honestly that's really all that matters at the end of the day. The only thing we forgot was to tell people to blow our bubbles at the ceremony so I think we did an awesome job remembering almost everything. It was magical, perfect and we cannot wait to get on another cruise and celebrate as husband and wife!

I have to post multiple picture posts I guess!

Hey everyone!

Wooftah I am getting to the home stretch. (Can you believe I started this thread a year ago?! Where has the time gone? Well I get married a week from today and we leave in 3 days so I'm pretty darn excited.

I'm glad to hear everyone's plans are coming along! For me, its just final packing and we leave. Random question:

Did you ladies stay in your dresses or are you planning to all day and night?

It didn't let me quote you! What the heck is going on... lol

Thank you!!! I wasn't going to purchase a bottle for that much and not be able to bring it where I wanted. I just think this is the easiest way to go for me because all I drink is Captain and I don't want to have to worry about tallying up drink after drink on board.

Everything is mostly complete. I cannot believe it.

Packing is becoming interesting as we will be on vacation for 2 weeks so I am sure I've overpacked A LOT!

Even with that they are often not able to hold the magnet. And the blue poster putty comes off clean so it is Carnival approved. We used command hooks to hang the netting around our door because again they come off clean so Carnival approved. :)

Such a good idea!

Does anyone know, if you buy a bottle from the Carnival website (not in the store while on the ship but before you go) can you bring those drinks you make everywhere on the ship? Nightclub, casino, bars? I just don't want to buy a bottle if you can only bring it certain places.

8 more days until we leave. HOLY COW!

I'm starting to get nervous about bringing my dress on board the plane. Does that count as a carry on? I sure hope not because i have another smaller suitcase I need to bring.

100 days until the big day, down to double digits tomorrow, and going dress shopping FINALLY on Saturday!!! :D

How was the dress shopping!?!?

Welcome Chocuta!

Today I have an overwhelming feeling of anxiety!!!

I have no clue if I'm packing enough, too much or just right.

I have no clue if I have everything in order.

I have no clue how I'm going to pull it all together in two weeks!

Where is all my fellow April brides!?!? How are you all feeling?

Holy cow.... I leave in 2 weeks and 1 day! Woah!

The only dilemma I've faced lately.....

I went in to get my dress final fitted and my tailor yelled at me (not meanly lol) she said I lost too much weight and can't lose any more because my dress won't fit and she won't have time to fix it! Eeek....33 pounds down. Can't freaking believe it.

AAHHH I'm getting married soon!!!

That's such a great idea! I never thought about making our door into a place for people to sign and leave messages. Although we have an aft balcony, so I'm not sure how many people would walk down that way (unless they have a room there), but still an awesome idea - I am def working this in!! [emoji106]

We have an aft view as well but I'm hoping at least just a few people will sign it! I'm just going to use posterboard and a small chalkboard nothing too crazy.

I haven't thought about it... I would need ideas to do it.

Search: Cruise Door Decorations it is sooooo cute! I don't want a tacky huge one but I like the idea of being able to have people sign and send good wishes.

Is anyone decorating their door on the cruise?!

Hello all. I can't believe that getting married in 4 days! It's been a long but exciting journey and I'm looking forward to how everything comes together, as it is officially out of my hands. I will try to post some pics after the cruise, and hopefully I can answer more questions when everything's done.

Have an amazing time! Good luck and let us know how everything went! :)

Welcome to all the new ladies and gents!

Quick update from my end of things:

Last time we checked we could not get a photographer on the ship if an actual wedding group wasn't booked. We were pretty upset by this.....I reached out to John Heald on fb and for those of you who don't know who he is, find out! He's amazing and can do many things. He is lining up a photographer for us. Thank goodness! We are starting to see the finish line. Literally everything is booked and almost all paid for. Now we are just finishing up the little touches to make sure everything is right and perfect. The weather here is getting beautiful 65 degrees! But we still cannot wait to celebrate our day on the beach with my best friend soon to be husband (weird to say! Lol)

We leave in 28 days! Ahhhhh!