Back from our spectacular Wedding Cruise aboard the Sapphire Princess to the Mexican Riviera on March 19th-26th. The wedding was on Day 3 - at sea, and we had 68 wedding guests sailing with us.
We did pretty much as "high-end" a wedding as Princess has ever done at sea. We pulled out all the stops, and threw in every bell-and-whistle, so anyone contemplating planning this sort of wedding at sea on Princess can contact me regarding how to handle the chaos. (and there was an unbelievable amount of chaos in the planning phase).
Going through TWE was incredibly frustrating (I almost cancelled the whole thing), but ultimately we worked our way up the chain and were finally being helped by one of their senior managers - Ginette who who I believe really did go out of her way to help answer our many questions and try get us what we wanted - which was about 90% of what we had requested. That being said, the Staff aboard the Sapphire went above and beyond every step of the way and gave us the wedding of our dreams, and we are so incredibly grateful to them for all their hard work.
A few little details you should know about what i'm describing here that will differ greatly from the regular package Princess offers. We did a traditional Jewish Ceremony and brought our own Rabbi with us. (We did the civil paperwork before we sailed to avoid having a marriage certificate from Bermuda so we were technically legally married already). We also had some family friends who are professional florists who did all of the wedding decorations, and handled all the details a formal wedding planner would manage for us. We chose all silk flowers and brought them on board with us (22 LARGE boxes of wedding decorations). I had a friend who is a professional hair stylist and make up artist come with us - as i'm too much of a control freak to leave that to chance. The rest of the wedding party and several guests had their hair done at the salon and everyone ultimately end up looking great.
Our wedding ceremony took place from 1:30pm - 3pm in the Skywalker, and our wedding reception was from 3pm - 6pm in the Wheelhouse Bar. We did passed appetizers with open bar and a cheese station for the first hour - the 3 other food stations for the 2nd hour, and an "enhanced" wedding cake (which was spectacularly beautiful and delicious) with the dessert food station for the 3rd hour. BTW - the food was excellent the entire week.
Other "wedding events" that took place on board included a private "rehearsal dinner" the night before the wedding in the Sterling steakhouse, and a post-wedding private dinner in Sabatinis, and lastly a private cocktail costume party on the last night of the trip.
We also had quite the "Swag Bag" - ie. OOT bag - that we provided to everyone who came aboard - and most of those ideas came from this website - so thank you to everyone who shared their wonderful pictures with me.
I'm working on a website to showcase the whole trip but wanted to attach a few preliminary pictures here in the meantime..
Best wishes to everyone who is planning their own Wedding at Sea - I truly hope it turns out a magical as ours did.
***5 Star*** Wedding on the Sapphire Princess
in Honeymoon & Wedding Cruises
Posted
Back from our spectacular Wedding Cruise aboard the Sapphire Princess to the Mexican Riviera on March 19th-26th. The wedding was on Day 3 - at sea, and we had 68 wedding guests sailing with us.
We did pretty much as "high-end" a wedding as Princess has ever done at sea. We pulled out all the stops, and threw in every bell-and-whistle, so anyone contemplating planning this sort of wedding at sea on Princess can contact me regarding how to handle the chaos. (and there was an unbelievable amount of chaos in the planning phase).
Going through TWE was incredibly frustrating (I almost cancelled the whole thing), but ultimately we worked our way up the chain and were finally being helped by one of their senior managers - Ginette who who I believe really did go out of her way to help answer our many questions and try get us what we wanted - which was about 90% of what we had requested. That being said, the Staff aboard the Sapphire went above and beyond every step of the way and gave us the wedding of our dreams, and we are so incredibly grateful to them for all their hard work.
A few little details you should know about what i'm describing here that will differ greatly from the regular package Princess offers. We did a traditional Jewish Ceremony and brought our own Rabbi with us. (We did the civil paperwork before we sailed to avoid having a marriage certificate from Bermuda so we were technically legally married already). We also had some family friends who are professional florists who did all of the wedding decorations, and handled all the details a formal wedding planner would manage for us. We chose all silk flowers and brought them on board with us (22 LARGE boxes of wedding decorations). I had a friend who is a professional hair stylist and make up artist come with us - as i'm too much of a control freak to leave that to chance. The rest of the wedding party and several guests had their hair done at the salon and everyone ultimately end up looking great.
Our wedding ceremony took place from 1:30pm - 3pm in the Skywalker, and our wedding reception was from 3pm - 6pm in the Wheelhouse Bar. We did passed appetizers with open bar and a cheese station for the first hour - the 3 other food stations for the 2nd hour, and an "enhanced" wedding cake (which was spectacularly beautiful and delicious) with the dessert food station for the 3rd hour. BTW - the food was excellent the entire week.
Other "wedding events" that took place on board included a private "rehearsal dinner" the night before the wedding in the Sterling steakhouse, and a post-wedding private dinner in Sabatinis, and lastly a private cocktail costume party on the last night of the trip.
We also had quite the "Swag Bag" - ie. OOT bag - that we provided to everyone who came aboard - and most of those ideas came from this website - so thank you to everyone who shared their wonderful pictures with me.
I'm working on a website to showcase the whole trip but wanted to attach a few preliminary pictures here in the meantime..
Best wishes to everyone who is planning their own Wedding at Sea - I truly hope it turns out a magical as ours did.