Carnival Pride At-Sea Wedding Review

[Carnival_Brides]

We are planning our vow renewal in December, but I'm not sure what to expect what I can and can't do for the ceremony. Your review has helped and put a new light into things. A few questions for you...

 

We are expecting 10 guest small I know, should we just book the basic ceremony or the one with the reception ? Since it will be on a sea day.

 

We really wanted the reception since this was our wedding. It really is up to you and your spouse whether or not you see the value in it. They completely closed off the Piano Bar and provided us with a bartender, a barwaiter, a server, our coordinator and the Chef de Cuisine was actually the one handling our food (I wasn't expecting that, and it was still a surprise to us). We added the pianist for $75.

 

Photos do they offer smaller packages? $300-$500 range?

 

Their photo packages for VR are the same as for weddings. They start at $500 (no digital disc) and go up from there. Sometimes the photographer(s) are able to customize a package for you based on your budget--I would let them know that ahead of time. The disc was important to us because there is 1300 miles between my hometown and my wife's hometown, so we wanted to be able to share photos without having to scan everything.

 

FSF, was there a fee for him?

 

There was no fee for him and it was the first time we’d ever seen him at a wedding. It was a random request that we came up in the middle of wedding planning. It is completely up to the Cruise Director and the availability of the Camp Carnival staff whether or not he is available. We made a request to our coordinator in Miami and she passed it onto the coordinator onboard the ship who made it happen.

 

Are you allowed to bring real flowers for the ceremony ? Or do you think it is better to use fake flowers since time and date is not known?

 

Carnival says you can bring real flowers on the ship if you’re a regular passenger, but you can’t take them off due to customs and USDA. However, they are strict with weddings, so it’s really a toss up. Since the time and date is unknown you might be better off with real-touch or silk. We bought ours from afloral.com

 

Also could you email me the Power point to me.

 

I'm in the middle of graduate classes, so it may take a few days, but I'll get it to you.

 

Oh and here is the photo pricelist that we used for purchasing our pictures.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Carnival_Brides

[Sycofaery]

 

 

 

 

 

OH MY LORD This cake is to DIE for!!! What all did you add to this besides the topper?

[Carnival_Brides]

OH MY LORD This cake is to DIE for!!! What all did you add to this besides the topper?

 

Thanks! The only thing that we added to the cake other than the topper my Mom made was the $.50 ribbon that came from Michael's After-Christmas Clearance. We had other ribbon that we were going to use, but we found this and it was just beautiful and photographed way better.

 

Our photographer added things to the table that weren't originally there, which is why it's so "busy".

 

On the table is:

A piece of scrap ivory lace that we added to the table to give it texture and hide the frilly white base that Carnival uses.

 

 

Gold star candy dishes that came from the Dollar Tree tennish years ago. We used to use them for Girl Scout ceremonies and found them sitting in a closet we were cleaning out. They're filled with color coordinated Lindt Chocolates and Snickers.

 

Gold and Purple butterflies that were actually Christmas Tree decorations and came from HomeGoods. I think they were on sale--my Mom found them.

 

Clear Carnival Drink of the Day cups. They don't really make these anymore and we brought them with us to use for the lollipops which we found at Michaels and Party City.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Carnival_Brides

[dchoney]

Hello Carnival Brides! Your wedding experience is so inspirational! I absolutely love every post! If you still have it available, do you mind sharing with me your PowerPoint template. It's such a great idea and I would love to do something similar! Thanks in advance. dchoney1@hotmail.com.

Edited August 24, 2014 by dchoney

[dancinman66]

That cake really is wonderful

I am going to have to start entering this into my spreadsheet

 

Thanks for all the information

 

 

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[Carnival_Brides]

Hello Carnival Brides! Your wedding experience is so inspirational! I absolutely love every post! If you still have it available, do you mind sharing with me your PowerPoint template. It's such a great idea and I would love to do something similar! Thanks in advance. dchoney1@hotmail.com.

 

I'll see what I have later tonight. I've started deleting and consolidating files, so fingers crossed. :-)

[sscruisers1]

Hi, This is my first time to post here. I really love reading about your wedding and it was very pretty! Congrats!! If you have time or could would you mind sending me on how you did your Fun times? It is really awesome. Good Job!!!

 

sses812@yahoo.com

 

Thanks!

[latinbarrera]

Hey I know you got married a long time ago but was hoping you still had that PDF for the door hanger and FunShip Itinerary because I'm going to have a large group as well. I loved reading your experience because I plan to get married on the Carnival Pride as well.

 

My email is jen.barrera83@yahoo.com

[latinbarrera]

Can you please send me the PowerPoint for the FunTimes and hanger if you have it this was an awesome idea. My email is jen.barrera83@yahoo.com.

[Carnival_Brides]

Hey I know you got married a long time ago but was hoping you still had that PDF for the door hanger and FunShip Itinerary because I'm going to have a large group as well. I loved reading your experience because I plan to get married on the Carnival Pride as well.

 

My email is jen.barrera83@yahoo.com

 

Hi, This is my first time to post here. I really love reading about your wedding and it was very pretty! Congrats!! If you have time or could would you mind sending me on how you did your Fun times? It is really awesome. Good Job!!!

 

sses812@yahoo.com

 

Thanks!

 

I actually recently deleted the files, but here's the "how-to". For the FunTimes welcome letter I basically spliced ye' olde FunTimes and formatted it as a 2 column brochure in Word.

http://carnival-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/fun-times-with-logo.jpg

 

For the door hangers, I created an 8x10 cell in Powerpoint. Created two 3.75x10 boxes, filled them with color, and placed the lace overlay on top. I then used text boxes to fill in the text as I wanted and found anchor clip-art that fit with the aesthetic.

[sscruisers1]

Thank you very much for getting back with me. I really appreciate it. :)

[palmtree99]

Activities, Dining, OOT Bags, and Setting up the "Wedding Closet"

 

We treated this more like a family vacation than our honeymoon so that obviously added a different tone to the cruise. We wanted this to be a relaxing vacation for everyone, so we didn’t pre-plan any activities other than the wedding. We told everyone things that we enjoyed doing and that they were welcome to join us, but didn’t schedule meals or activities short of reminding our group that the early seating of dinner was at 6.

 

 

 

When we were booking, our PVP made sure that our bookings were linked. This made it super-easy when we called Group Dining to set up our tables. They gave us several different table options, but we opted for a table for 8 and one for 7 in the middle of the dining room. We found the first night at dinner, that since four of guests didn’t come, the Maître ‘d seated two people from the waiting list with us, but they decided to move upon finding out that we were a group—I don’t blame them. We pretty much stayed at our assigned tables for most of the cruise, but our wait staff was fine if we moved people around.

 

 

 

After dinner the first night, we returned to the closet to get unpacked and set up the wedding closet. As we mentioned before we had booked four 7A balcony cabins right next to one another. The open balcony made it super handy to get back and forth and complete wedding projects—like OOT bags!

 

 

 

 

We packed all of the OOT bag supplies separately and set the bags up that first night. The plan was to deliver them the next morning after meeting the wedding coordinator where we’d find out the date and time for the wedding, but they ended up going out in spurts as we caught up with people.

 

 

 

My brilliant sister gifted most of our guests packs of toiletry items for Christmas (we are a strange family), so we took care of things that we find handy to have on cruises and tend to forget and the cruiselines charge $$$ for:

 

 

 

Tide packs

 

Small packs of gum

 

Postcards

 

Sanitizers

 

Sunscreen

 

Personalized coffee mugs

 

Pads of paper

 

 

 

 

 

Finished Product!

 

 

 

 

 

Hey there! Where did you get the anchor pads of paper? Loved your review! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[palmtree99]

Our coordinator on board didn't ask for our ML, but CCL was adamant that we needed it, so we brought our original and ALL of the paperwork with us. Miami was more difficult to work with than the actual CCL staff onboard the ship (surprise, surprise). They wanted our ML faxed 4 weeks beforehand, but MD didn't become legal until 12:01 on NYE and we left Jan.13, so that was not going to happen. They made us sign a weird commitment ceremony waiver and initial that we would fax the certified copy as soon as we had it in our hand, on the 2nd, 11 days before we left.

 

 

My last comment disappeared. Where did you get the anchor pads of paper? Thanks! :)

 

 

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[Carnival_Brides]

My last comment disappeared. Where did you get the anchor pads of paper? Thanks! :)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I got them at Michaels, but it was an after-summer super clearance three years ago. I bought all the nautical bits (plastic totes, paper, note cards, tissue paper, picture frames) for $20.00 or something. They do tend to repeat seasonal themes in the $1 items every year, so it might be worth a check.

[palmtree99]

I got them at Michaels, but it was an after-summer super clearance three years ago. I bought all the nautical bits (plastic totes, paper, note cards, tissue paper, picture frames) for $20.00 or something. They do tend to repeat seasonal themes in the $1 items every year, so it might be worth a check.

 

 

Thank you, I will definitely check!

 

 

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[DustinandStacy2015]

Beautiful review! How about the bags? I've been trying to find cheap nautical bags....

[Carnival_Brides]

Beautiful review! How about the bags? I've been trying to find cheap nautical bags....

 

Thanks. The bags also came from that super after-summer clearance at Michaels. We bought that stuff before we booked our cruise and wedding :cool: I don't know how much stuff you're planning to put in your OOT bags, but WalMart had shopping bags with anchors for $1. You might also try stores like $5 Below.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Carnival_Brides

[VASOXFANN]

Beautiful review! How about the bags? I've been trying to find cheap nautical bags....

 

Check out Oriental Trading Co. Be sure to read the reviews!

[cruzcrazitchr]

Would you please send me the DIY you created? They are awesome, and I am helping a friend with her Carnival wedding. My email is mplemons(at)cruisesinc(dot)com. Thank you!!

[Carnival_Brides]

Would you please send me the DIY you created? They are awesome, and I am helping a friend with her Carnival wedding. My email is mplemons(at)cruisesinc(dot)com. Thank you!!

 

I'm sorry I know longer have the templates to share, but here's a post to the "how-to".

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=44368097&postcount=61

[CourtnayA]

Anything we DIYed (STDs, invites, FunTimes, door hangers, etc), we designed on our own and we had printed at Staples. They let us use our own specialty paper or we could chose from their selection. If you give me your email, I can send you the file. I did them in Powerpoint, so the text is easy to manipulate.

Oh My Goodness! Can I please ask for your help on our Funtimes and door hangers we are creating for our guests for our Wedding aboard Carnival Pride June 10th!!!!!!!!!!!??? :) Please! Oh my what an awesome idea!!!! :)

[Carnival_Brides]

Oh My Goodness! Can I please ask for your help on our Funtimes and door hangers we are creating for our guests for our Wedding aboard Carnival Pride June 10th!!!!!!!!!!!??? :) Please! Oh my what an awesome idea!!!! :)

 

Unfortunately, my hard drive died and I did not have these documents backed up, so I don't have templates anymore. Sorry!

[leruskin]

Anything we DIYed (STDs, invites, FunTimes, door hangers, etc), we designed on our own and we had printed at Staples. They let us use our own specialty paper or we could chose from their selection. If you give me your email, I can send you the file. I did them in Powerpoint, so the text is easy to manipulate.

NEVERMIND saw you lost your hard drive :(

Edited June 8, 2015 by leruskin

[AprilBride2016]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with everyone! We are getting married onboard Carnival Liberty and haven't gotten many details from TWE or Carnival. The hanging clothes rack was such a great idea! We are hanging our banner on the end cap so when people arrive at the port, they will easily see our party. I told TWE about it and they said they loved the idea and would tell other brides!

 

Again, thank you for sharing. Your wedding looked absolutely amazing! Great planning, organizing and decorating! Best wishes!

[Carnival_Brides]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with everyone! We are getting married onboard Carnival Liberty and haven't gotten many details from TWE or Carnival. The hanging clothes rack was such a great idea! We are hanging our banner on the end cap so when people arrive at the port, they will easily see our party. I told TWE about it and they said they loved the idea and would tell other brides!

 

Again, thank you for sharing. Your wedding looked absolutely amazing! Great planning, organizing and decorating! Best wishes!

 

I'm glad the review was helpful for you. Three years after our wedding, we still say that the garment rack was the best thing we did in terms of organization.

 

I hope you'll consider doing a review of your Carnival wedding--they are useful for everyone especially as the lines keep changing certain aspects of their pricing, packages, and procedures. We didn't have to deal with a third-party vendor, but the Carnival staff (Weddings and onboard) were pretty accommodating.