A SENSATIONAL Wedding - Carnival Sensation June 11, 2015

[slord12]

The food display was set up behind it with the ice sculpture and cold items in the middle with the hot items set up on either side. Since we had so many people the display was mirrored on each side of the ice sculpture. We chose the california roll, assorted sushi bar, roast beef with brie, chicken apple salad on crackers, and the prosciutto with melon. They had huge trays of fruit along with pretty fruit cups in martini glasses and veggie's with ranch arranged in champagne flutes. We also chose chicken nuggets, stuffed mushrooms, chicken drummettes, spring rolls, lamb empanadas, and the batter fried shrimp (we are secretly fried junk food junkies at heart if you can't tell). The food was amazing and they kept it replenished constantly - even the fancy fruit and veggie cups!

 

 

Once we were in place they immediately go ahead and do the cake cutting ceremony! We slowly cut into the top layer and Elina grabbed 2 small pieces for us to feed each other. We were nice at first (and were busy eating our bite because it was so good) but of course we did have to smash just a little on each others mouth!

 

 

 

 

 

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Once we cleaned up the cake we did our toast. They ask if anyone would like to give a toast when you fill out your forms but we decided to just do a general toast as bride and groom with the whole room. We didn't want extra little things like that to take up time.

 

 

 

As soon as every finished cheering/clapping the DJ announced that the bar is OPEN! Elina asked us what we'd like to drink and I started with the blue margaritas (always one of my fave Carnival drinks) and Jon goes with his old standby of crown and ginger ale. We went to the food table and everyone of course let us cut in line to go first. We wound up going back multiple times throughout the reception - like I said they kept it full and fresh for the entire reception.

 

As we ate we mingled with our guests around us and as people walked by. Everyone told us over and over again how beautiful everything was and how much fun they were having. Once we ate we wanted to go ahead and do our dances so we could relax and enjoy the rest of the reception.

 

We did choose all of our dance songs - first dance, father/daughter, and mother/son. The DJ announced it was time for our first dance and he called us to the dance floor.

 

Jon knows that I love surprises, so he worked with my parents on our first dance song so that it would be a surprise to me. When the music started playing I immediately knew what the song was and teared up. It was "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid! Ever since we've been planning our wedding I've always said you know, Ariel got married on a ship too! Ariel has always been a favorite of mine (redheads stick together!). It was such a cute and sweet first dance song.

 

Yoga missed editing the patch out of this one - haha! It's a running joke about Jon and the patch. During a spring break cruise in college there is an entire FB album titled "The patch on Spring Break" - seriously, oh look, here's the patch snorkeling. This ended up becoming a favorite picture BECAUSE the patch was visible.

 

 

 

Once we finished our first dance we went straight into the father/daughter dance. Now, this was a surprise I had for my daddy. He is a Jimmy Buffett fan - named their beach house "beach house on the moon" after a Jimmy Buffett song. I knew for a long time what I wanted our dance to be - Jimmy Buffett's "Little Miss Magic". I didn't tell him or my mama what the song would be. My daddy knew the song when it started playing but had never really listened to the lyrics that closely until then. My mama had never the song and I KNEW she would just cry her eyes out, and she did! The line that really got her was "your mother's still the only other woman for me, little miss magic, what you gonna be?". I look really terrible in all of the father/daughter dance pictures because once I saw my mama I was literally holding back tears the entire time and you can see it on my face! For the mother/son dance Jon chose "Benny and the Jets" since they used to sing and dance to that song in the car all the time when he was little.

 

Right after the dances we wanted to go ahead and have our witnesses and Mary sign our license just so we wouldn't have to stop again and do it later. We snuck through the secret door connecting the Kaleidoscope to Michelangelo's Lounge and they had a little table set up for us and even moved one of the bouquet's over. We chose to let our MOH and best man sign as the witnesses. Once that was over, back to party!

 

 

[HalloweenBride2015]

Fantastic review. I loved reading it. Where did you get your Funtimes Room Directory? I'm getting married on the Sensation in October and would love to be able to provide those to the sailing guests.

[FutureMrsDiaz]

Fantastic review. I loved reading it. Where did you get your Funtimes Room Directory? I'm getting married on the Sensation in October and would love to be able to provide those to the sailing guests.

 

 

Halloweenbride2015... Getting married on Halloween?! I am 10-31-15 on Sunshine!!! [emoji1]

 

BTW I'm loving the review!!

[HalloweenBride2015]

Actually the 29th on the Sensation but will still be on the cruise for Halloween and telling everyone to bring costumes!

[slord12]

Fantastic review. I loved reading it. Where did you get your Funtimes Room Directory? I'm getting married on the Sensation in October and would love to be able to provide those to the sailing guests.

 

 

Send me your email and I can forward them and lots of other things! I will try to finish up the review tomorrow or Friday! Thanks for reading - you will LOVE your wedding day. It was such a blast and we are all still talking about it a month later!

[slord12]

Halloweenbride2015... Getting married on Halloween?! I am 10-31-15 on Sunshine!!! [emoji1]

 

BTW I'm loving the review!!

 

 

Thanks! If you'd like any of the documents leave me your email address and I'll share them! Will try to finish up the review Thursday or Friday.

[slord12]

Apparently there was an issue with photobucket and somehow one of my pictures isn't showing on page 1 - not sure why as it's still there in my photobucket. Anyway, here is the picture that was deleted from that post.

 

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I left off right after we had our MOH and best man sign our license as witnesses! We spent the rest of our reception enjoying the dancing, socializing, food, and drinks.

 

 

 

 

 

We had a blast at our reception! Once it was time to go the DJ announced that it was time for the last dance. We requested "Shout" by the Isley Brothers - and that's always a great way to end a party with the dance floor full. So fun!

 

I've heard over and over again on these boards about how the 1.5 hour wasn't long enough. That was not my experience. It felt like we had plenty of time (keep in mind we didn't have people speaking and giving toasts, bouquet/garter toss, all that stuff). Our reception started a little before 1:30 and they let our non-sailing guests stay until around 3:15 or 3:20 so really our reception closer to 2 hours. We started saying our goodbyes to our non-sailing guests and by this time they REALLY had to leave. I was very glad the coordinators weren't rushing them off until the last possible second.

 

By the time Jon and I walked outside of the Kaleidoscope the stairways were already roped off down to the lower decks where the staterooms are. Yoga told us to meet him outside of the Kaleidoscope after muster to take the rest of our pictures.

 

We had several of our guests in our same muster station. It was really quick and painless. We were sitting on the promenade right off of the casino. The crew let us wait and go out to our lifeboats last (I didn't mind - it was just one staircase up) and no sooner than we walked to the boats and stood there for maybe a minute we were free to go.

 

We ran down to our room to freshen up for the rest of our pictures then went to meet Yoga. We told him up front we really didn't want to spend a lot of time taking extra pictures all around the ship. We let him do some inside, then had a few specific pictures outside that we wanted. He also took a few individual shots of us inside - and we were surprised at how great some of those turned out! During this time he also switched to video mode occasionally since we wanted that.

 

Here are some more of our professional pictures!

 

 

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Professional pictures continued

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we were finished inside we went out on deck. Yoga mentioned another good reason to wait to go outside was that the water in the background would be prettier once we got out!

 

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You would think we'd have thought to put our cool sunglasses on - duh!

 

 

 

Once we got these pictures we said we were happy and ready to go! Well on our way down we ran into a group of our best friends so these were the last 2 pictures we took, haha!

 

 

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Jon and I headed downstairs to change and go relax and start the party with our friends and family!

 

Out of all of the pictures we took that day - this is a favorite. A friend of mine took this with her phone and we look so relaxed and happy surrounded by a huge group of people who love us (and I'm rocking my new monogram cover-up a co-worker made for me!). I mean really like 2-2.5 hours after your wedding and you just get to hang out and relax - it doesn't get better than that, folks.

 

 

I did freshen up before dinner and wear my dress that night (it's the one day I can wear it, so you better believe I did)! Jon didn't put his tux back on, it was SOAKED from sweat and was so gross, we put that thing in the bag and said forget it! I had pre-arranged with the dining department for our entire group to be in the same section of the dining room. We wound up with 4 - 12 tops, a 9 top, an 8 top, and a little 4 top off to the side of one of our bigger tables. If you are planning a cruise wedding, I'd HIGHLY recommend working with the dining department even if you don't have a "group booking" they can still link you up.

 

The rest of our cruise was just fabulous. We spent the entire trip laughing - seriously several of us were hoarse by the end of the trip, haha. Here we are almost a month later and we all still talk about it every time we hang out! These pictures sum up our weekend!

 

 

 

 

Once we disembarked on Sunday, Jon and I went back and spent another glorious week in Flagler Beach relaxing and recovering from such an exciting trip!

 

That concludes my Carnival Sensation wedding review! Thank you all so much for reading - if you have any specific questions about anything or would like information on anything you saw just let me know! I'm more than happy to share.

 

Now that we're back here's some projects I've been working on!

 

The little photo album I got onboard to put all of the polaroids in - they are all in place now and the album turned out great!

 

 

I made a collage out of our save the dates and invitations.

 

 

My dress is currently being preserved and my hanger will be displayed in the front bottom section of the case. A shadow box is also being made that will contain my bouquet, Jon's boutonniere, our cake topper, and the actual Funtimes that was in our room on our wedding day (I wanted the date to show). We had the glass put in our guest book map and it looks so good, just have to hang it now! We put our Carnival wedding champagne glasses in our china cabinet in the dining room.

 

I will get our video uploaded to youtube post the link so you all can see it!

[FutureMrsDiaz]

Yes please

Angelang2003@hotmail.com

Thanks!

[slord12]

Yes please

Angelang2003@hotmail.com

Thanks!

 

Sent you 2 emails with lots of files!

[Ellanora]

Two things about your review caught my interest immediately - the gorgeous flowers and your stays in Flagler Beach, as I live in Flagler County. :D

 

Everything about your wedding looks beautiful - thank you so much for the thorough review and pictures! And congratulations to you both!!

[HalloweenBride2015]

Thanks! If you'd like any of the documents leave me your email address and I'll share them! Will try to finish up the review Thursday or Friday.

 

 

lizhansen@cfl.rr.com

 

Thanks in advance. And really thank you for such a complete and detailed review. I love the pictures of you dancing and how much fun everyone is having. That is what I hope for, a fun and joyous wedding with little pressure.

[slord12]

Two things about your review caught my interest immediately - the gorgeous flowers and your stays in Flagler Beach, as I live in Flagler County. :D

 

Everything about your wedding looks beautiful - thank you so much for the thorough review and pictures! And congratulations to you both!!

 

Thank you! It was such a fun time! Too funny about Flagler - my parents have always loved it there and built their house last year, I wouldn't be too surprised if they weren't permanent residents soon haha!

[slord12]

lizhansen@cfl.rr.com

 

Thanks in advance. And really thank you for such a complete and detailed review. I love the pictures of you dancing and how much fun everyone is having. That is what I hope for, a fun and joyous wedding with little pressure.

 

Sending now - 2 emails! Thank you for reading, it was fun to re-live all of the details of my experience. You will have a fabulous time!!

[IrishLassie]

Thank you for your great review & beautiful pictures. You make a lovely couple. Best wishes for a long & happy marriage. :)

 

I do have one question, where did you get the polaroid cameras? I would love to get some for my grandson's wedding nx. April. Thanks.

[amack2313]

Thanks! If you'd like any of the documents leave me your email address and I'll share them! Will try to finish up the review Thursday or Friday.

 

LOVE seeing all of your pictures and reading your story!! We are doing a cruise wedding also, I would love to see your documents you used!

 

am.fenske@yahoo.com

 

Thank you so much and congratulations, you both looked amazing and so in love :D

[slord12]

Thank you for your great review & beautiful pictures. You make a lovely couple. Best wishes for a long & happy marriage. :)

 

I do have one question, where did you get the polaroid cameras? I would love to get some for my grandson's wedding nx. April. Thanks.

 

Thank you so much! The polaroids are Fujifilm instax mini - my friend has a white one and she bought me the black one. They came from Amazon - also we ordered tons of film packs for the wedding to go with them from Amazon. The only negative about them is you get 10 pictures per film pack so someone has to be diligent to keep watching them and change the film!

[slord12]

LOVE seeing all of your pictures and reading your story!! We are doing a cruise wedding also, I would love to see your documents you used!

 

am.fenske@yahoo.com

 

Thank you so much and congratulations, you both looked amazing and so in love :D

 

Thank you!! Congratulations - you will love it! I'm sending you 2 emails now!

[slord12]

Here is our video! Carnival just changed the production of the videos so we really weren't sure what we would get. We really enjoyed the video when he let us preview it! I'm not really sure how much the video wound up costing (or would cost if purchased separate) since we really got a bundle package of everything (and I mean everything) for $2600. Enjoy!

 

The video is unlisted, so you have to use the link to be able to watch it!

 

[MissJJVT]

I'd love copies of your docs as well, please!

 

Jejenki4@vt.edu

 

Thanks so much- you have really made this "real" for me!!

[slord12]

I'd love copies of your docs as well, please!

 

Jejenki4@vt.edu

 

Thanks so much- you have really made this "real" for me!!

 

 

Will send them now - 2 emails! Thank you for reading and I hope my review helps!