Cruiseship Weddings - Europe/Mediterranean??

[DedeNPete]

Looking for information from anyone who has been married during a European or Mediterranean cruise....We are considering a Princess cruise this summer, we've never cruised before.

 

I tried to call The Wedding Experience over the past few days, I just get their machine and no call back yet. No response from my email either although I didn't send that until Friday. I'm excited about the idea and so, a little impatient!

 

We're hoping for a very simple ceremony, just the two of us, in the ship's chapel on an at sea day (we don't want to miss any of the ports!).

 

I'm worried this might be more difficult than a Caribbean cruise leaving a US port, or just not possible within our time frame. I know some countries have a residency requirement of several days, which we could not meet.

 

Can anyone help?

[eatapeach3]

I don't know too much about Europe or Mediterranean cruises, but I wouldn't think the weddding itself would be harder than on a Carribean cruise. On Princess, the captain can marry you, so you are not limited to certain ports or getting married the day you leave. Here is a link from theknot.com that lists residency requirements for some of the European countries. I'm not sure if it matters since you aren't actually getting married on that country's land. Your best bet would be to get in touch The Wedding Experience. They should be able to tell you what the requirements are for whatever you are planning. It was hard to for me to reach Royal Romance sometimes too, but once you do they were always able to help.

 

http://www.theknot.com/ch_article.html?Object=AI980914210350&keywordID=147&keywordType=2&parentID=527

[tlshelle]

If you still need info - let me know

We got married Aug 2003 in Greece on a 14 day Med cruise on Celebrity. We were the first european wedding the wedding planners did (Celebrity uses A Wedding for You). and everything turned out great. It is likley very easy for them to do now. the only thing is probably a bit more paper work and I had to have our marriage papers translated from greek when we got back.

[TRVLRGRL]

Hi DedeNPete!

 

My fiancee and I just decided to do the same. I started looking around today for cruise options and all that fun stuff.

 

I have read many places that Princess will perform your wedding at sea, in which case we might not need to worry about foreign licenses, etc. I was looking at their site and they have a couple round trip cruises leaving from England. To me that seems like the best bet. Personally, I am looking at this one: http://www.princess.com/planner/itinerary.jsp?resItineraryCode=EWA140&resShipId=CP&resStartPortId=SOU&resEndPortId=SOU&resNoOfNights=14&resVoyageId=C522&resTourId=&type=C&resultsString=pageOffset%3D0%26month%3D8%26year%3D2005%26resTradeId%3DE%26monthYear%3D8%252C2005%26day%3D0%26resShipId%3D%26resType%3DC%26orderBy%3DDATE

 

It looks like they have earlier dates also.

 

This will also be our first cruise.

 

Good luck planning your wedding and any tips you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

 

:)

[DedeNPete]

Actually, we finally made a decision and booked our wedding with Princess because it was so much simpler than the Costa cruise we initially wanted. Our wedding is scheduled aboard the Golden on June 6.

 

I'll keep you posted!

 

Dede

[muse_clio]

Hi DedeNPete!

 

My fiancee and I just decided to do the same. I started looking around today for cruise options and all that fun stuff. Good luck planning your wedding and any tips you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

 

:)

 

TRAVLRGRL, isn't looking at the options amazingly fun? We became engaged at Christmas and I drooled over the 2005 cruise books, waiting and waiting for the 2006 Princess cruise sked to come out at the end of March.

 

I had been watching tv and seen the commercial (for diamonds?) where the husband hollers "I LOVE THIS WOMAN!" in San Marco Square. I'd love for my sweetie to do the same thing (i best not hold my breath!) :cool: Or even the commercial one where they're in Rome (maybe in front of the Trevi Fountain?? ) and the husband says "You know, I'd like to marry you all over again in front of all these people as witnesses" and she just rolls her eyes--until her dad pops out from behind a newspaper and her mom shows up.

 

So I started looking into getting married in Rome or Venice. There are plenty of ways to accomplish that. And several sites that explain how. According to Tatiana at the organization that manages the Princess weddings, a Venice wedding is just over $4000, and the Santorini, Greece wedding was $3K (I think). EEK! And that didn't include much. The princess shipboard cruise I think was $2300 for the basics. The women I spoke to at Princess Weddings were SO nice....

 

So, we agreed on a mediterranean cruise (Venice-to-Barcelona on 16 May) (at least I have the chance to hear him shout "I LOVE THIS WOMAN!" in San Marco Square!). However, common sense (and the budget) prevailed, and we'll be either stateside or on the ship when we tie the knot.

 

Since we invited many of our wedding party to "honeymoon" with us, i opted to coordinate a group cruise with cruise critic. The rates are much better, and there are some extra benefits like low deposits. This probably wouldn't be doable if we were having a large wedding, but we're not, so i can handle it.

 

Whatever you do, have a wonderful time planning and don't stress. The journey can be as much fun as the event!

 

tracey in md.