Carnival Sunshine wedding review

[Holly_J]

Greetings from the beautiful Carnival Sunshine, I am typing this review from the Serenity deck! I know some brides that are getting married soon so I thought I would post this review sooner so they can hopefully find this helpful in time. I don't have any pictures yet but I will post an album when we get back home. I will try to answer any questions anyone has as well but it probably won't be for a while.

 

We left Winnipeg on Wednesday, we flew down with my maid of honour and bridesmaid as well as their husbands and my brother and his girlfriend. We all met up at the airport early for lunch, and we are glad we did because the Florida Panthers and the Winnipeg Jets were flying out that afternoon so my brother and fiancee who are pretty big hockey fans got some good pictures.

[Holly_J]

I flew down with my dress in a garment bag and packed some chocolates to give to our cabin crew to see if I could bribe them into hanging my dress up in a closet. They didn't have a closet onboard so we ended up just laying the dress flat on top of everything in the overhead bins, it worked well and my dress made it to the wedding beautifully. As we were getting ready for take off one of the flight attendants came up to us and said that they were going to upgrade us to the front of the plane, not quite first class but there were free drinks and food as well as more leg room. As we were landing they announced our upcoming wedding and congratulated us to the entire plane.

 

Our flight was delayed an hour out of Winnipeg so we got into Orlando around 9. I went to pick up the rental car at Avis while everyone got their bags. There was no line and I had my keys in 5 minutes. My brother rented through Budget and their line was insane, it took him 2 hours to get his car!

 

We checked into the Hampton Inn Cooca Beach around 330 on Friday afternoon and dropped off my maid of honour and her hubby as well as all of our luggage. We dropped off the rental car at Avis and they actually were able to drop us off in it back at the hotel which was super nice. The Hampton Inn was amazing to us, they left us a bag with some bottled water, pistachios, and chocolates as well as a thank you card. My parents bought a bunch of wine and beer and we were able to drink in the breakfast bar area with all of our guests before dinner.

 

We had a Welcome Dinner instead of a rehearsal dinner. I chose Brano's Italian Grill, it was a block away from the hotel and they had a private room all set up for us. They took great care of us and the food was delicious! They also had gluten free options and were very accomodating. After dinner we went back to the lobby for a few drinks, I only stayed up until 1030 because I had my stylist coming at 630 to do my hair and make up. I think a few people stayed up until 130 and the hotel was totally fine with it.

 

I booked my hair and make up through Professional Elegance. I booked Tiffany's services back in May last year and tried to get ahold of her about 2 weeks before the wedding. All of my emails ended up in her junk mail for some reason but she did contact me on Tuesday to confirm that she would be there. Tiffany did an amazing job on my hair and make up, I looked amazing and I will post some pictures later. If you are doing a wedding in Florida try to book her, I cannot recommend her services enough!

 

Hair and make up finished at 945 and my fiancee had already checked out of our room and loaded all of our luggage onto the shuttle. My maid of honour and I were the last ones on so as far as I know that part went smoothly. The Hampton Inn had arranged our own shuttle to take us to the port at 930 I think we had almost 30 people on that bus, they were towing a little trailer behind it so there was room for all the luggage, it was $6 per person to take the shuttle and it was on our hotel bills. We made it to Port Canaveral in plenty of time and were rushed quickly through security and check in.

 

I got to meet with my officiant Lisa who was so sweet and she did an amazon job, we wanted a short and sweet ceremony and let her choose our vows. The ones she picked were really meaningful and I couldn't get through them without crying. Our wedding coordinator was Carole, we went over the details with her and she told the wedding party to be at the Limelight Lounge for rehearsal at 1230 and the guests to be there for 1240. She escorted me, my bridesmaids, my mom, and her friend to my cabin and helped us get ready. My fiancee got ready in my brother's room because it was on a different floor on the other side of the ship. My mom's friend is a photographer and she took about 100 pictures of me getting ready. My parent's friend Arnie who teaches photography at a community college went to the boy's room to take picture of them getting ready. I saw Arnie giving our Carnival photographer some pointers during the reception.

 

Everyone went to the wedding location so I waited a bit in the room, around 1245 Jay, our Carnival photographer called and said he would be right up to come take some pictures of me getting ready. While I was on the phone with him Carole came to my door with my dad to take me to the ceremony. So Jay only had 10 minutes to take some pictures of me and my dad. He hadn't even gone to the boy's room to take their pictures.

 

For our ceremony we did the wedding entrance to Forever by Chris Brown, there is a video on youtube that went viral a few years ago and we wanted to do our own version of it. I got my maid of honour's hubby to cut the track down to about 2 and a half minutes and then it fades out to an acoustic version so I could walk down the aisle with my dad. All the DJ had to do was press play and leave it, there was only one song on the entire CD, I tried to make it as easy as possible. He screwed it up and pressed the next button so it started from the beginning again. My dad and I were outside the lounge waiting for our music to cue up and it was kind awkward. It felt like a really long time but eventually we made it down the aisle. That was the only thing that I know of that went wrong. Not a huge deal.

 

Our ceremony was short and sweet but also really meaningful. Like I said Lisa was amazing and she did a really good job. I don't really remember what anything from the ceremony looked like because I was focusing on trying not to cry and on my groom. But that's what pictures are for!

 

Immediately after the ceremony I had told the Carnival photographer that I wanted a picture of everyone on the stairs taken from above so we did that. Then headed just down the hall to the reception at Piano Bar88. I had gone to party city and picked up some things in teal (our wedding colour) like napkins, some gems, rhinestone ribbon and some decorations. We also had our own cake topper made and I picked out a few different sizes of ribbon for them to put on the cake. When we got there everything was set up beautifully. We did a toast and thanked everyone for coming, cut the cake right away then they opened up the buffet and the bar.

 

We had 12 non-sailing guests and 28 sailing guests. We were surprised that so many people came considering they had to come from all over Canada and the USA. We took the non sailing guests for pictures right away because we booked the celebrate big package and only had an hour and a half and we knew it would fly by quickly. We had my mom's friends taking pictures the entire time and even though I'm sure they weren't impressed by it, they still let them do it.

 

For our menu we picked: titi shrimp salad on scallop cracker, prosciutto and melon canapé, roast beef and brie cheese canapé, california sushi roll, smoked salmon and cream cheese canapé, spicy chicken drumettes bacon wrapped sweet plantains, chicken brochette, lamb empanadas with cilantro salsa, spring rolls, and battered shrimp. There were a few guests with gluten allergies and Carnival was so good about it. We also ordered a gluten free chocolate cake. I tried a little piece of it and it was really good. I also had a few bites of wedding cake, we picked red velvet with cream cheese icing and it was also delicious. I think from the buffet I only ended up having a few of the wings and they were probably some of the best wings I have ever had. Our guests said everything tasted great. We had servers constantly bringing drinks around and the service was great.

 

We managed to mingle with everyone and get pictures taken with everyone at the reception. Our maid of Honour's husband is a piano player and they allowed him to play a few songs on the pain during the reception. Our Carnival photographer arranged to meet us in the lobby bar after dinner to take us around the ship to take more pictures. Before we knew it, it was time for our non sailing guests to leave. We said our goodbyes and waited for muster drill to start. Our muster station was on the deck right outside the Piano Bar so that was really convenient. After muster drill we made our way to deck 11 for sail away.

 

My dad had found a place that has a webcam of the cruise ships sailing away and had arranged for them to film us and we posted it to a social media website that I don't think I'm allowed to name on this forum. My uncle back home was supposed to record it so we will see how that turned out.

 

Our onboard contact was Elenia, she was the one who set up our reception and she is also a hostess in the dining room. She did an amazing job of setting everything up. She was able to get us 3 big tables together for dinner in the dining room. We had tried to get that set up through my Carnival PVP but she didn't have any luck with that (she did do a wonderful job throughout the whole planning phase and was super helpful with all of my requests). We went for dinner at 530 and the servers took really good care of us. Our starters and entrees came out really fast and we were done dinner by 645. My hubby and I were pretty tired by this point and decided to call Jay and cancel on him. I'm pretty sure that we have enough pictures and I had been in my dress for almost 8 hours by that point and I had enough. We will meet with him later on in the cruise to see if we want to buy any of his pictures but I have a feeling the ones our friends took will be enough, we gave Carnival enough of our money already anyway.

 

We went back to the cabin to find champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, and all of our leftover stuff from the reception like our custom can topper. I changed out of my dress and into jeans then we met our wedding party out on one of the decks, the boys smoked some cigars and the girls had some bubbly and the strawberries. Overall it was a great experience!

[grooveynurse]

Oh this is a WONDERFUL review! Brought a tear to my eye...though it seems everything sweet and happy does that to me these days since I'm 62 days out from my own wedding!!!!

 

I'm so glad to hear everything turned out well for your wedding, I can't believe that your entrance music was ruined when it was so simple...but helpful to hear that it happened so I can mentally prepare for that scenario.

 

Who set up your reception area with the things you bought and brought on board? Did you designate someone to do it?

[shea953]

Congratulations Holly! I'm glad that everything went well and Tiffany finally responded. I get married on the Sunshine, January 31st, so thank you for posting this review.

 

One quick question - Did your photographer offer to take pictures around the boat in between reception and dinner?

[mrstriceasnice]

Congratulations! It sounds wonderful. I have four poses in my wedding binder that I want done, one of them is the stairs shot. :)

[Miss Kellybean]

This is a wonderful review! Thank you so much! If you are up to answering some questions, I am curious about the shuttle from the hotel. Did they book it for you? Also, which venue was your ceremony in? Did you get the DJ at the reception? Any issues there?

[DustinandStacy2015]

WOW! Sounds lovely! So weird because we are almost doing exactly what you did!!! We are flying into Orlando, going to Cocoa but we are getting married on the beach the day of our cruise. We are getting married on the beach then getting on the valor and having a reception while on board later in the evening. We made reservations for Brano's yesterday for our groom's dinner! So weird!!! I'm glad it was good though because that was the only place I could find we liked too. So glad everything but the music went smooth. We can't wait!!!

[abcsteward]

Sounds like you are making memories... Congrats... Can't wait to see the pictures from your wonderful day!

[Hailey36]

This one sounds like a great place. Can I hire this place as my vow renewal location too? Actually my wedding was not a very big celebration, so I want to make my vow renewal a grand celebration and relive those moments.

[scoobyva77]

Thank you for the review! We are going to get married on Carnival and the Sunshine is our first pick. It sounds like it was a great time! Is there anyway you can message me the webcam website address? That sounds like that would be an awesome pic or video. Thanks and CONGRATS!

[aainsjen]

Thank you for your review, my sister is getting married on the 15th. Do you have any contacts for Elaina? I liked how you said she put 3 big tables together for you at the dining room, we also have 30 people sailing and 17 that are not. It would be nice if we could all sit together...

They also told us not to arrive at port until 10-1030..they were ready for you at 930? If so maybe we should go early as well.

 

Thank you in advance

[Holly_J]

I'm back home now so I'm going to answer your questions, but first I made an album of some of our pictures. Most of them were taken by friends of my parents, I have specified which ones were taken by the Carnival photographer. I'm not sure how to link this so you will just have to copy and paste it into your browser: imgur dot com/a/8CZ3d <----see what I did there?:) If you can't figure it out PM and I can send you the link

 

Now for your answers!

grooveynurse-Who set up your reception area with the things you bought and brought on board? Did you designate someone to do it?

 

I had my brother and his girlfriend do that for me. Carole asked them to drop it off at the ceremony location.

 

Shea953-Did your photographer offer to take pictures around the boat in between reception and dinner?

 

Jay did offer to do that but we wanted to do the sail away stuff so we made an appointment with him for after dinner to meet in the lobby bar at 7. We were too tired and ended up cancelling on him. He found me waiting in line for the comedy club on Wednesday evening and told us to come by the next day and look at the photos. He said that if we wanted more around the ship that he could do them for us that evening. We ended up declining because we had a ton of photos taken already by our friends. I brought the original price list Carnival had sent me when I booked the wedding, the price list Jay had was higher but they did honour the original one. We were planning on getting the Deluxe package at $750 and his price was $900. So bring your price list with you!

 

Miss Kellybean- I am curious about the shuttle from the hotel. Did they book it for you? Also, which venue was your ceremony in? Did you get the DJ at the reception? Any issues there?

 

 

I dealt with Justine and Ana at the Hampton Inn group sales department and those girls were fabulous! I was stressing a bit about getting to the port on time but they booked us our own private bus that took us to the port, I think it was $6 each and billed directly to the hotel room. As far as I know everything went smoothly on that end, we got to the port at 1015. Our ceremony was in the Limelight Lounge, our reception was in piano bar88 because we did not book the DJ. If you book the DJ they put you in the Liquid Lounge.

 

Hailey36- I can't really help you out with your vow renewal question.

 

Scoobyva77-Is there anyway you can message me the webcam website address? That sounds like that would be an awesome pic or video.

 

I can't send you a link for the webcam video as it is on a social media site that I am not allowed to mention. I think my dad contacted the restaurant Fish Lips and set it up through them. My techie Uncle at home managed to record it and share it on the un-named social media site so our families back home could watch it.

 

aainsjen- Do you have any contacts for Elaina? I liked how you said she put 3 big tables together for you at the dining room, we also have 30 people sailing and 17 that are not. It would be nice if we could all sit together...

They also told us not to arrive at port until 10-1030..they were ready for you at 930? If so maybe we should go early as well.

 

I don't have a contact for Elenia, she was at the reception the whole time and was able to call her boss in the dining room and have the tables set up for us. We arrived at the port at 1015, the shuttle picked us up at the hotel at 930. I don't know if getting there any earlier will make a difference because you can't board the ship until it is cleared by customs. We were all checked in and ready to go by 1045 and didn't get to board until shortly after 11.

 

I hope I answered everyone's questions. It was a great wedding and an awesome cruise! Good luck to all of you with your own cruise weddings!

[Miss Kellybean]

Thank you so much! Your pics are wonderful and you and your groom looked fab!