KISHA8223

Such a good point! I got married on land, but would have loved to extend our reception to three days -- it FLEW by!

how did the get married on land work out? im trying to book mine for next year in Nassau, but confused on the land or ship. i want the land but they make it seem like its so hard to get your guest there.

Hi, I see you live in NC. I am just outside of the Charlotte area and also getting married in Charleston but on the Sunshine when she is there this coming November. From what I have found, you can go anywhere in SC to get your license it does not have to be in Charleston where you apply just has to be in SC.

 

I think its awesome that you would consider paying for cabins for your guest however I think most of your guest would be more than willing to pay for their own cabin. I work with groups all the time and its very easy to set up and convenient. I thought we would have a small wedding being that its 3 1/2 hours from where we live to Charleston but turns out I have over 50 cruising with us and about 30 others who have RSVPd to just come on board for the wedding. Setting the cruise up as a group booking you would be able to hold cabin space and your guest would only have to put down $50 initially to hold space. There's also perks like onboard credits that your guest would receive booking into a group. Best part ... if you have 8 or more cabins you can earn tour conductor credits that can be applied to your cabin reducing the amount you and your fiance have to pay out of pocket for your cabin, if enough cabins book you could basically get your honeymoon for free!

 

I have also booked Cover Girl Brides out of Charleston to do my hair and makeup. They will come to my hotel at 7am to start doing hair and makeup since there will be not time once you board ship. The wedding group will need to be at the port at 1030 for boarding. You can also set up a group block at a hotel for night before cruise. We did this with two hotels near Patriots Point and have a bus picking everyone up and driving us to port.

 

I agree, no extra decorations for me! My fiance and I are wedding djs and do alot of wedding planning as well for others so less I have to do ... the better! Trust me, people really want remember all those extra decorations just the fun they had at the wedding. Keep it simple. I may consider bringing my own silk flowers for the attendants because honestly I think the ones offered by them are way over priced.

 

Robin Cash Knight

can you get those credits if you go thru a travel agent? im planning mine now and going thru travel agent and would love to get some off on our cabin.

RECEPTION

We had 1.5 hours for the reception and it was just enough time. We didn’t need extended time to mingle because all of our 50 guests were cruising guests so we saw them at dinner each night. The reception was the perfect place to dance and unwind! The DJ was very good. My hubby and I aren’t into the current music but we chose “Top 40 Hits” because we thought it would get our guests up and moving. Well, the DJ read the crowd well and saw that genre wasn’t going over well and he mixed our favorite 90’s hip hop and R&B and even a few soul classics. We all stayed on the dance floor! We emailed Carnival the songs that we wanted for our first dance and groom/mom dance and the DJ played those as well. He followed our lineup and we stayed on schedule. The guests enjoyed the food but like most brides, I only managed to nibble. The layout in the club was nice and just happened to complement our wedding colors. For the 52 of us, the venue did not seem too large at all. The cake was delicious! We chose separate flavors for the three layers and the vanilla with strawberry cream was the best! We did not want our guests to be served the leftover cake at dinner so we brought it to our stateroom. I provided the ribbon and cake topper to our wedding coordinator and she made sure the cake was decorated.

 

PHOTOS

Our photographer did a great job! We opted not to order a video but he “surprised” us with one anyway and we negotiated it into our package. I brought along the photo package list from Carnival but we created our own package with the photographer. Many of our guests took great candid shots so we really didn’t want to pay Carnival for those. However, choosing just 40 shots from the 150 that he took was difficult. We ended up with about 75 shots from Carnival photographer, thank you cards, the video, and the digital files for the shots what we chose. I refused to buy their $1,100 dollar photo book. That is way overpriced, especially because it only includes 40 shots. I compiled all the pictures from our guests with the Carnival shots and made a WONDERFUL book on Snapfish. I personalized it the way I wanted and included almost 700 pictures. It’s bound like a deluxe yearbook, has over 80 pages, and it was only $80 on cyber Monday.

 

I have left out so many of the planning details but I can provide those if anyone is interested. I know planning a wedding can be stressful so it’s great to be able to plan a Carnival cruise wedding with the personal experience from other brides. I did bring along wedding favors for the beach ceremony as well as the guestbook table at the reception. I’ll try to upload pics of those items as well as some from the reception so you can get a feel for the layout.

I Know this was almost a year ago, but i seen this i thought it was so lovely and im like sitting on the edge on paying for mine on the carnival cruise. nothing fancy but just wanted to know was it worth it? could i ask you some other questions that im very nervous about!! lol..