Antlove30Pipes11

So I'm getting married on the Carnival Victory at the end of November 2019. I am trying to finalize my guest bags. Any good ideas would be so helpful or if i'm doing too much ;). I am already adding advil, shout packs, hangover pills, sun block, make up remover, tic tacs, recipe card (guest to fill out), Welcome card. All items would be travel size and individually wrapped. I was thinking about adding anti-bacterial wipes. The "big ticket item" is going to be a towel that I might have printed for the event or as is. Just wondering if I am forgetting anything that could be useful. We are already having a bottle of wine in each room from the cruise line. Might order some water and add that but not decided yet. Your suggestions or even the places where you got your products would be great help. Thanks in advance.

Your dress was absolutely beautiful! The entire wedding party looked amazing. Thanks for sharing your experience!

I would love the name of the ETSY shop for your flowers and the template for your cruise welcome letter loveantoinette@hotmail.com . I am also going to do gift bags/fanny packs. I've been trying to scout sites where I can purchase when I am ready. I don't want to buy too early because I am still waiting for RSVPs on my November wedding. Sounds like all in all it was a great experience though and I am so happy for you and your family!

I can't believe it is June 2019 already! 

Seems like some brides have already gotten married this year. Please come back to our board for 2019 brides and share your experiences. Those of us still waiting until the end of the year i'm sure would appreciate it! Anything happen during your cruise wedding that surprised you? Anything you would have done differently? Things we might be worried about but shouldn't...?

If you are getting married in June what are the last minute things you are worrying about or trying to accomplish? What are you most excited about now that your month has arrived? Just so happy to read everyone's stories and keep planning for my day in November.

Just wondering...

Are you doing OOT bags for your guest that cruise with you? If you are doing OOT bags are you not doing wedding favors as well?  We are getting married at sea so everyone coming to the wedding has to cruise with us. I definitely plan to do OOT bags but no idea on the wedding favors yet.

I thought about doing both but it seems like a lot. I don't have that many people traveling with us but i'm still waiting on all the RSVPs to flow in. I can't decide what to do as a favor and what to put in the final OOT bag which is where i'm getting stuck I think. Let me know what you all have planned or did for your cruise wedding.

On 4/9/2019 at 4:09 PM, bingoandg2019 said:

Anyone getting their hair or make up done in the salon on the cruise? Bringing someone on board? DIY?

The ship i’m getting married on told me they don’t do make up. My hair will likely be in braids or some kind of an updo so not worried there. My niece and sister will do my make up. They did my engagement picture make up and everyone thought it was professional so I feel like i’m covered there. 

On 3/18/2019 at 11:28 AM, pmoorefi said:

here is my wedding cruise booklet and along with shirt design and save the date postcard idea I did for my wedding cruise 

 

 

 

This is amazing! You can tell you really put some work into it. How did you find a map of the area that was high resolution enough to print? That has been my biggest issue is getting the high res images needed for printing to be clear. 

On 7/1/2015 at 6:04 AM, slord12 said:

 

Thanks! I'm going to try and finish the review today or tomorrow. I will send them to you now!

Hi.

I know it has been a while. Do you still have this template or Carnival Welcome letter that you could share with me? loveantoinette@hotmail.com

I am getting married on the Carnival Victory in November 2019 and i'm trying to get my templates together now so I can just fill them in as I go before printing. Would really appreciate your help on anyone else who might see this board post and can send to me. Thanks!

Hi.

Just wanted to check in to see if there were any new cruise brides for 2019!

Anyone getting married at sea on a Carnival Cruise this year? Anyone already get married at sea on a Carnival cruise that could give me some more insight from 2018? Of course all opinions are good for me. I can take what I can for my situation but any help you could add here would be wonderful. I need to build a Chuppah that will also need to be transported from LA to Miami. If you have any experience with this outside of a cruise wedding would be a big help.

Excited our time is finally here!

After I did a lot of research I decided to use withjoy.com for my wedding website because of all the customization it allows for your information. For the actual planning I have been using a wedding planning book and The Knot. I just try to make notes for anything they have specific to a 'land' wedding since most don't apply to my at sea wedding. It is still really difficult to know if I am doing thing at the exact right time but it helps me capture the things I actually need to do versus what the Cruise Ship will do for me etc... If anyone comes up with something else please let us know! 🙂

Hi.

I too am looking for a high res image or a Carnival Fun Time template to create some documents for my cruise wedding next year. If anyone has that by chance can you please send to me as well. loveantoinette@hotmail.com. Really appreciate it!

If you are unable (or if it is easier) to upload the images here, feel free to email them: kellyann1972@gmail.com

 

Thanks again for the info! :cool:

Hi.

I just emailed you. For some reason it won’t let me attach the image. Let me know if you don’t get my email. Did you find the wedding videos on youtube? The link below is one I found for the ship i’m planning to get married on.

Hi there! My boyfriend of 5 years just proposed to me while we were on our vacation cruise recently (September 2nd). Yay!!! I am a pretty simple gal and I love the idea of a cruise wedding. I really much prefer the idea of getting married in port versus on the ship. I am interested in doing everything through the ship and am probably going to go with Carnival. Since we visited Half Moon Cay a year ago I have not stopped thinking about how beautiful that island is - and I told myself then that it would make a great wedding spot. I realize HMC (or any port - especially a tender port in the Bahamas...lol) runs the risk of being missed, but I am okay with that possibility. I have talked with Carnival to get some initial questions answered, read through their online site info and PDF, and I have searched through these message boards. As many of you know, it is tough to find info on the destination weddings (versus on board weddings) and a lot of it is old. So I thought I would try posting with some questions.

 

I am having a hard time finding photos of the inside of the chapel, and I didn't check out the inside when we visited. Does anyone have photos? I hear it is darling.

 

Carnival says there is no price difference in a beach versus a chapel wedding (nice), but does anyone know if chairs/seating are included/provided either in the chapel or on the beach?

 

Carnival explained that there is no fee for the photographer or videographer - only if we decide to purchase. Does anyone know the cost of the video? I would also love to see a sample of one of their videos if anyone has one to share.

 

I know the ship photos are normally a little pricey, but what about the wedding photos? I won't spend anywhere near the dollar amount many others seem to spend on wedding photos, so I doubt any of their packages will appeal to me....but I am curious what they start at (and include) as well as the price per photo. On the cruise we just took, we did do one of the free photo sessions and it was $22 for an 8x10. They bargained a little with us as I hear they also do for the wedding photos. I am just curious what the prices are like

 

I also hear (have yet to confirm this with Carnival) that you can bring your own photographer if you pay Carnival a $500 fee. Can anyone confirm this?

 

Thanks in advance!!!

Hi.

I am booked on a wedding at sea with Carnival in 2019. I can't answer the questions about HMC but I here is what I know so far...

I am going to attach the images for the picture packages and the video if it let's me. As you mentioned, and I have seen as well, they are willing to negotiate the cost a little bit on the picture packages. For the video you can search on Youtube for the video they provide through Carnival Weddings. You should know the video is a generic overview of the day with a generic song playing in the background of all the Carnival wedding videos I have seen. They are all less than 10mins I think. They don't capture any of the ceremony where you could go back and listen to your vows or anything. I was planning to opt out of the video and ask my family members to tape everything so I can edit a video together later myself. I actually want to hear the ceremony and vows and wedding song we dance to etc... To pay $899 or $599 for a short video in slo-mo with a song I don't particularly like in the background doesn't work for me.

I have also heard you can pay a few to bring on your own photographer but I have not asked about that option. The wedding department should be able to let you know that for sure if you call back with more questions. Just a forewarning they want you to book first before digging in deep with questions but they did answer all the questions I could think of before booking. I just didn't get the good questions together until I booked and got their wedding package etc...

More photos from the second party!

 

We're very happy we did the second party as it was well worth the cost for the amount of fun everyone had! :)

 

 

-Paul

Hi.

Thank you so much for the detailed review. Really fun! Congratulations as well! Looks like fun was had by all.

Just wondering for the second party did you plan that before the cruise took off along with your wedding planning or right after your planned wedding ceremony/reception? Also did they give you the option to have the DJ at the second party? My MIL is very adamant about extending our wedding reception but I know the limitations can be strict. Last how did you compose/put together your own music mix for your original reception? I am currently not having the DJ for my Carnival wedding but I am having a hard time trying to figure out a good music mix for the wild spectrum of family and friends that we have. haha Thanks again for the great review and information.

Not a problem.

Check your email [emoji4].

 

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So sorry just realized I typed my email address wrong. :( It should be loveantoinette@hotmail.com. Can you please resend whenever you get a chance? I appreciate your help and sorry about that. I was typing too fast!

Yup.

Check your email.

 

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Hi Lipz.

Just wondering if you could share the template with me as well. I have some time before I need to prepare anything but if I find the right template I could start dropping in the info now. loveantoinette@ghotmail.com. Thanks so much your time and consideration.

Check your email!

Hi.

If you don't mind could you please send the template to me too. I appreciate your help.

loveantoinette@hotmail.com.

So as I was mentioning in my previous post we are not getting married until November 2019. I sent out save the dates in May 2018 to give everyone over a year to plan and save for the trip if they wanted to join us. I don't plan to send out actual invites until next June 2019. Would it be weird to send a 'we are a year out' kind of notice/email in November 2018? Only because anyone who wants to join us for the cruise has to be paid off by Sept 26th, 2019. I was thinking that anyone who hasn't booked or hasn't mentioned they for sure can't make it might want more time than 4 months but maybe that should be ok... What do y'all think? Is anyone else planning to do something similar to this if you already sent your STD out super early?

Length of cruise for wedding cruise?? How long are your wedding cruises and how many attendees do you all anticipate? None of my family lives in Florida, so everyone will have to fly to port. We are debating between a 4 day and a 7 day cruise. Do any of you have a 7 day that looks like it will have a good guest turn out?

 

 

Thanks!!

I would have loved to do a 7 day for our cruise wedding since this will be our honeymoon too. We were trying to be more considerate to family as we only have a couple of friends that even live in Florida so everybody had to travel. My fiancé was against us having a wedding in LA where we live because all of his family and friends would have had to travel and if we did it in NY my family would have to travel. Our compromise was for a 4 day cruise over Thanksgiving so people would have to take less time off and everyone has to travel to Miami no matter what.

We are thinking of adding on a couple days at the end of the cruise either flying to Jamaica or some place else just us since we didn't go with the longer cruise.

Hi Everyone! My name is Whitney and I got engaged earlier this month. My Fiance and I had always said we would do a cruise wedding. Because of my school/residency schedule, we have decided to do it in May or June 2019. Which gives a shorter planning window than I would like, but what can you do!

 

We are trying to decide what cruise line to go with right now. We are strongly leaning towards Carnival. Does anyone know what the additional fee for guests is after 20 guests?

 

Thanks!

I booked my cruise wedding with Carnival. I was told that it really depends on your final guest count. They said it could range from $40 to $60 per person. I also read someone else's thread on the cruise critics board and she said she ended up having to also pay tax on those additional people. When I brought up taxes with our wedding planner with Carnival she said she wasn't sure what I was talking about. Either way I am planning for $45/pp base and just adding an additional $20 to that to be safe. If I pay less that's great.

I told her that right now we had about 30 people booked and 30 or so interested. She quoted me about $45/pp for the additional people with a total of about 60 guests. We shall see...

Yes! Same here! We are getting married in December 2019 and we had the exact same thing occur with our $25 deposit cut off. I called in May to hold the rooms after I finished our Save the Dates and was basically given 4 weeks to have everyone place their deposit. I called to have it extended and they only gave me 1 extra week.

 

In addition to that many people were given different information each time they called. I specifically chose rooms on the 7th floor and when my guests called they were told they could get rooms on deck 1 or 2 and I was baffled because I knew my guests wouldn't want to be spread throughout the ship and multiple guests told me this was offered to them. Also, I was initially told when holding our rooms the $25 deposit would hold the room and lock in the price but after several guests made their deposits they said they were told this doesn't actually hold the room until they put in the full $250pp which isnt supposed to be due until July 2019. It makes me wonder more and more about booking my actual wedding package through Carnival rather than going with third party vendors, even the booking of staterooms has been a less than stellar experience.

Just based on the time of year we wanted to cruise and the cost of each cruise lines packages for weddings we are still happy with Carnival so far. I just think their policies could be better about this deposit. I figure they want to guarantee people will pay and still take the cruise in the end. You would think booking for a group they would be better about timing.

Either way I have to see how it goes going forward. Yes my travel agent told me while the $25 booking deposit will hold the room category it will not hold the actual cabin they get. They have to pay the actual deposit of $250 to be assigned a room#. She told me that once they pay the actual deposit that they will be assigned their cabin from there. The longer they wait to pay the full deposit the more they will have to take whichever cabins are left in the category they picked instead of having their pick of the ship etc... I guess I can understand that as the full deposit per person on the website is like $300 per person depending on the cruise you decide to take. Either way I am going to be watching all these things really closely.

I am also worried about my friends or family that book through their own TA or travel service. Will they be included in any extra things we get like the private/shared party they offer the night of embarkation when you have a certain amount of staterooms booked. Both FH and I have friends that have expressed they will be booking through their own source. I will have to wait for their RSVP to confirm as my TA can only tell me the people that have booked through her...

We will be cruising in Dec. 2019 and plan to get married in St. Thomas. I am trying to browse around for things right now so I can plan later. I am stuck on where to look for good prices on "beachy type" suites or that type of attire for my soon to be husband. Also, past Brides or soon to be Brides, did you wear a "beachy type" dress? Where did you find yours? =) Thanks!

We are getting married November 2019 on Carnival Victory. I plan to get my FH suit/tux, we haven't decided yet, from Snap Suits. They are an online retailer. I believe they have satellite offices or tailors that you go to to get your measurements done. They will provide you with the style of suits they already have in their line plus fabrics, linings, colors etc... You can customize but I haven't started the process with them yet so not sure on all the details. I feel comfortable with this because I work in the apparel industry I am pretty well versed in fabrics and trims. Also my FH needs a new suit/tux so I was going to make him buy a new one for the wedding anyway. I really don't want him to worry about having to rent anything. I won't be renting my dress.

I am also considering getting my dress from a similar service for women called Anomalie. I like the idea of customizing the dress to me and getting my exact measurements. I am pretty short so I already said I was going to go to a dress maker but maybe Anomalie will work just as well. They allow for complete customization but still saves money compared to buying from a wedding shop.

This may not work for most brides but like I mentioned I work in the apparel industry. I feel comfortable working with these online retailers. I also have many friends in the industry to help me if I need it so I feel lucky in that sense. There are so many options out there. You really have to go with what works best for you and your FH.

I’m also looking for new ideas. Seems a lot of people will be using a similar template. I would prefer something less used. Let me know if anyone has anything fresh. Or a cruise wedding that isn’t nautical themed would be awesome.

Question for the 2019 Brides...

Did anyone have an issue with holding their group rate? Since we are getting married while at sea everyone who wants to come must sail with us. Anyone else getting married while at sea on Carnival?

Since we booked our cruise so early under a group rate they barely gave us a month to hold the rooms with a $25 deposit. Unfortunately I published that cost on my save the date before I knew that they would be so stringent about it. I kept asking my travel agent why if the cruise isn't until the end of 2019 and the real deposit isn't due until July 2019 why the group rate holding deposit of $25 couldn't be extended further. She extended it a couple of times but actually complained to me about asking for it to be extended.

It was mainly an issue for me because a lot of my save the dates ended up being returned by the usps for no reason. Some of them were returned almost a month after I sent them so everyone who got it late now can't take advantage of the $25 holding deposit. I tried to clarify everything on my wedding website so if they went through my information they should have been clear but we are still getting questions.

Just wondering how you navigated this on your end.

I plan on setting aside a tip but I'm not sure how much is appropriate yet! I feel like tips are something that is super subjective and is whatever you feel comfortable giving for the service you received. I looked it up on google and got that you "should" tip approximately 10-15% of your final bill to your bartenders to split between them, $10-20 per person for waitstaff, and around $200 for a wedding coordinator. This the site I found the information from: https://www.brides.com/story/complete-list-wedding-vendors-gratuity-tip-how-much

I hope that helps!

Thanks it does help. That was my next question. If I do decide to tip everyone what should be my starting amount to gather the percentage of tip I want to give. It makes sense to tip based on the final bill. I will also have to wait to see if anyone deserves less or even more based on their performance. I always tip 20% in restaurants. The service has to be seriously lacking for me to give less than 20%. I just hope the day doesn't go so fast that I have to track people down later to tip them after the wedding.

Thank you. Do you mind if I ask how much you tipped?

 

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Hi.

You had your wedding already yes? How did you go about tipping? Who did you tip? What percentage did you use to determine how much you would tip?

Thanks so much for your help. I hope your wedding went off without a problem!