Cruise Bride Panicking

[katie5290]

Hi everyone!

 

I can't believe I'm less than a year out from the wedding! We booked it in March/April when they released the dates. We are having an embarkation day wedding on the Oasis of the Seas out of Port Canaveral on November 5, 2017. The ceremony will be held in Dazzles Nightclub. I have been lost in this whole process. I can't seem to find much information for what I'm looking for. I've been scouring the sites since we first booked and I feel like I'm being spun in circles!

 

Things I'm trying to find info for (specifically for embarkation day weddings/Port Canaveral/RCCL):

 

I'm trying to figure out a timeline for my wedding day (time to be at the port, embarkation, wedding time, disembarkation for non-sailing)

 

Transportation for wedding guests from Orlando International to the hotel

 

Photography - I don't think/feel like 3 hours is enough time for all the pictures I want done. I have a list of pictures and I'm sure the photographer will be (hopefully) creative and come up with another list. Can we get 'first look' pictures? Getting ready pictures? I know its a no-no to bring your own, but I can't help but think about it. Its a long story but after what had happened with my dad only a month after my sisters wedding pictures are very very important to me!

 

Invitations - I am doing a traditional pocketfold invitation for the wedding. Has anyone done the traditional pocketfold before? If so what information did you include for your inserts? Are you willing to share pictures? I love the idea of the boarding pass/passport invites but I don't feel they are for us.

 

Decorations - How much does the cruise line provide? Has anyone gone all out for their wedding? Is an aisle runner worth it?

 

Beauty - Does anyone have any/Know of any hair stylists/makeup artists in the Port Canaveral area? I'm looking for someone who would come to the hotel the morning of.

 

Welcome Dinner? OOT Bags? Flowers? Getting everything on the ship?

 

Can you tell I'm nervous:eek:?! Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

 

-Thank you

Edited November 30, 2016 by katie5290

[mindymariexxo]

Hi! I'm a Carnival bride so I can't offer too many specifics for RCCL, but I want to maybe help where I can. So first of all, TAKE A DEEP BREATH. This will be my second wedding so I can say with certainty from experience, SOMETHING WILL GO WRONG. Something will be not exactly as you want it, no matter how hard you try to prevent it. Your best bet is having a really good bridesmaid/MOH who helps divert your attention from most of it so treat them well! I only knew of 2 things that went wrong on my first "Big day" and a couple months later I learned of soooooooo many other things that my best friend handled.

 

Now, on to your questions...

 

Have you tried calling RCCL's wedding department to find out a timeline? Carnival gave us a time to be at the port for check-in and told us the time our wedding would be. Powers of deduction let me know what time our non-sailing guests will be off the ship (wedding starts at 1. 0.5 hour ceremony + 1.5 hour reception and they should be off around 3). Also, ask if you have the ability to do a tour/site inspection beforehand. Carnival allowed me to go on board with up to 3 guests on a day there was a wedding. I got to see how embarkation worked with the group, saw the rooms and decorations, and even got to hang out on the Lido deck and have a drink to celebrate choosing a cruise wedding! I live close to the port, but it sounds like you have a LOT of questions about this so even if you have to travel it might be worth it for you to plan a little weekend getaway with your honey and relax.

 

Transportation from the airport to the hotel: I would try to find a hotel that offers transportation to cut down costs for you. It's pretty common in cities like this and there's no sense in you arranging transportation unless everyone is arriving at the same time. Let them get a cab or an Uber if the hotel doesn't provide transportation.

 

Photography I will leave to other RCCL brides and also suggest you talk to their wedding department.

 

Invitations: we're doing simpler invitations and direction guests to our wedding website. On the website I've included a lot of information that I would have put on invitations, but it would have made soooooooo many inserts. I'm also not posting everything right away. Directions, things to do on board, what we will be doing in port are all being saved until after official invitations go out (speaking of which, we did boarding passes for Save the Dates so our guests could start planning and get website info, and will be sending out a formal invitation with an RSVP by date closer to our wedding. If you like boarding passes you might consider doing something like that) If you want to post your email address I can give you our wedding website so you can see how I laid it out for organization and the info I've included so far.

 

I plan on decorating some, but definitely keeping in mind that everything needs to be taken on and off the ship. Idk what RCCL provides. Carnival provides enough to look nice, but nothing is personalized. We're going to have a couple signs made and do silk flowers (bought on etsy, I'm not crafty). I want our own personalized champagne flutes. But I'm not going crazy because we will also be carrying on welcome bags. Carnival's room stewards will deliver them to the rooms for $1 per bag. Check with RCCL to see if they will do that for you. We're buying plastic totes with lids which will give us a place to store things now and an easy way to carry things on board.

 

We're not doing a welcome dinner, but we are going to plan events for our guests to do with us on the cruise. We will have drinks at the same bar before dinner every night and will them where we will be on our day in port. We would like to arrange a cocktail hour on the sea day, but that's going to depend on whether we can get transferred to group services. Since Carnival requires a certain number of cabins booked in a certain amount of time, and I didn't feel like we could tell people when they had to book, we haven't been given any of the group services perks yet.

 

Try to remember that the most important thing is that you enjoy your day and cruise, and that you get married. Do I remember not liking the flowers from my first wedding? Yes. But I laugh about how much I freaked out over it and they looked perfectly fine in pictures. It's going to be a great experience for you and your guests.

[thecocoarose]

I agree with Mindy. As crazy as it seems, it is important to relax and accept that there will be glitches but overall, the day WILL go much better than you can ever imagine.

 

We had our Welcome Dinner at Brano's in Cocoa Beach and they did a great job! They were reasonably priced and all of our guests enjoyed the food. They have a special menu for dinner parties that you can find on their website.

 

Good luck and all the anxiety of planning will pay off, I promise!

[saibutterfly]

Hey Katie5290,

 

First off, breathe...I know that's hard to do when it's your wedding, but one of the best parts of the cruise wedding experience is that you can't micromanage it and stress yourself out.

 

I did an embarkation day wedding out of Port Canaveral on Royal Caribbean. My wedding was on the Freedom of the Seas. In June, my husband and I will celebrate our 3 year anniversary. I hope I can help you in some way. Here is a link to the itinerary I sent to the people attending our wedding. It helped keep everyone on the same page.

 

Wedding Itinerary

 

About 2 weeks to a month before your wedding (I know this timeline sucks for the control freak that I am), you will get a call from RC and you will finalize the details of your wedding. It's all pretty much the same as far as structure of the day. I customized all my stuff...I brought my own minister, I made all my flowers, I brought my own burned CDs of music that I wanted played. I did not do a photographer...I used RC so I can't comment to your concern there, but I love my wedding pictures. I did a traditional wedding invitation. I didn't burn a whole bunch of money on invitations because I believe it's something that people will throw in the garbage so I ordered my invites from theamericanwedding.com. I used one of their cheapest invites and customized to what I wanted. It was still very pretty and classy. Do what you want...I also thought the passport ones were cute, but that was way too much crafty for me. My invites were this...

 

Wedding Invitation

 

I included an RSVP card and a letter for all the things that would be necessary on that day. Here is a link to my letter...

 

Invitation Letter

 

My wedding weekend looked like this...

 

Friday...everyone arrived

Saturday...went and had mani/pedi with my man of honor that morning. Spent the afternoon around the pool with all my guests. Had the hotel cater and host a Welcome Dinner for everyone. Did toasts, bridal party gifts, and that kind of stuff at the welcome dinner. After dinner, the group hung out by the pool...we delivered OOT bags to the people who were cruising.

Sunday...my makeup/hair person arrived at 6:30 a.m. at the hotel. Did hair and makeup all morning until time to go to the boat. I coordinated everyone's shuttle from the hotel to the ship. They had to take care of their own self that morning. I did all the pre-planning for them...they had to follow through. Also, we had people assigned to take stuff on the boat. We tried to do most everything the night before, but we had dependable people take our flowers, wedding favors, and guest book on the boat for us. I carried my dress onto the boat. Left the hotel by 10:15 a.m....did checkin and all what you see on the schedule with the wedding planner. THAT WAS THE ABSOLUTE CRAZIEST PART...GETTING ON THE BOAT...LEAVE EARLIER THAN 10:15. On the boat around 11:15ish...into our room to get dressed, getting married around noon. All non sailing guests were off around 3. It was a whirlwind morning. Cruised the rest of the week.

 

I hope you have a fantastic wedding...don't hesitate to ask any questions if I didn't cover it. Just remember to breathe...being married to your husband is the most important thing anyways. I have the most fantastic memories of my wedding day, and people still talk about what a great wedding weekend we had. The people who cruised with us still talk about what a great trip it was. Have fun!

Edited January 3, 2017 by saibutterfly