Booking with Royal Celebrations

[helloxxannie]

Hi All! My fiancé & I met on a Royal Caribbean ship 3 years ago, it's been my dream to get married on a cruise! We were hoping to have a date set for January 2022, but after inquiring with Royal Celebrations, I received an email back that they are not confirming wedding dates until further notice.

 

Has anyone been able to book their wedding recently, or have you received this response before? How early prior to a wedding date should I be booking with Royal Celebrations? 

 

Thanks for any insight or help you can provide! 

[thjeepster]

3 hours ago, helloxxannie said:

Hi All! My fiancé & I met on a Royal Caribbean ship 3 years ago, it's been my dream to get married on a cruise! We were hoping to have a date set for January 2022, but after inquiring with Royal Celebrations, I received an email back that they are not confirming wedding dates until further notice.

 

Has anyone been able to book their wedding recently, or have you received this response before? How early prior to a wedding date should I be booking with Royal Celebrations? 

 

Thanks for any insight or help you can provide! 

Hello. You wanted to get married this month?  Or you mean 2023?

 

my wife and I just got married on odyssey of the seas 3 months ago thru the Royal Celebrations group. 
 

we had 7 cruises canceled for our wedding since April 2020. 
 

the group only had one other wedding before ours and we were the first wedding aboard odyssey!!!

 

if you have any questions please ask!!

[helloxxannie]

2 hours ago, thjeepster said:

Hello. You wanted to get married this month?  Or you mean 2023?

 

my wife and I just got married on odyssey of the seas 3 months ago thru the Royal Celebrations group. 
 

we had 7 cruises canceled for our wedding since April 2020. 
 

the group only had one other wedding before ours and we were the first wedding aboard odyssey!!!

 

if you have any questions please ask!!

Oops! Totally forgot it was already 2022! Yes, I meant January 2023! 

 

Did you have a wedding on embarkment or at sea? Wow, 7 cancellations must have been quite the ordeal! I can understand why they may not be wanting to book new ones with everything that's going on but obviously I was hoping I could at least try! 

[thjeepster]

18 hours ago, helloxxannie said:

Oops! Totally forgot it was already 2022! Yes, I meant January 2023! 

 

Did you have a wedding on embarkment or at sea? Wow, 7 cancellations must have been quite the ordeal! I can understand why they may not be wanting to book new ones with everything that's going on but obviously I was hoping I could at least try! 

We had our wedding at sea.....during the first sea day.  It was amazing.  The Captain was excited to marry us because we were the first wedding on Odyssey and had his first mate take pics of the wedding so he could document it for the ship.

 

Yeah, we went from getting married on April 2020 on Indy, to August 2020 on Oasis, to Oct. 2020 on Indy, to April 2021 on Odyssey, to April 2021 on Indy, to August on Indy, and finally to Oct. on Indy...which was switched to Odyssey.

 

They are probably waiting to see what happens in the next couple of months.   2020 they had to offer $200 OBC and $500 towards extra wedding stuff (like photo or receptions) because people didn't want to  wait or change like we did.

 

Which ship are you looking at....and what type of ceremony?:

[helloxxannie]

12 minutes ago, thjeepster said:

We had our wedding at sea.....during the first sea day.  It was amazing.  The Captain was excited to marry us because we were the first wedding on Odyssey and had his first mate take pics of the wedding so he could document it for the ship.

 

Yeah, we went from getting married on April 2020 on Indy, to August 2020 on Oasis, to Oct. 2020 on Indy, to April 2021 on Odyssey, to April 2021 on Indy, to August on Indy, and finally to Oct. on Indy...which was switched to Odyssey.

 

They are probably waiting to see what happens in the next couple of months.   2020 they had to offer $200 OBC and $500 towards extra wedding stuff (like photo or receptions) because people didn't want to  wait or change like we did.

 

Which ship are you looking at....and what type of ceremony?:

We were looking at the Harmony of the Seas in January 2023 with an Embarkment ceremony as my Fiancé is from Fort Lauderdale so it would be easiest for us to have guests join us that may not want to cruise. 

 

How far prior to your initial 2020 date did you book? Were you flexible on dates or did you just choose what was available? How was your overall wedding planning experience with Royal? 

[thjeepster]

20 hours ago, helloxxannie said:

We were looking at the Harmony of the Seas in January 2023 with an Embarkment ceremony as my Fiancé is from Fort Lauderdale so it would be easiest for us to have guests join us that may not want to cruise. 

 

How far prior to your initial 2020 date did you book? Were you flexible on dates or did you just choose what was available? How was your overall wedding planning experience with Royal? 

Harmony is a beautiful ship!  We enjoyed it in Dec of 2016.  

I totally understand having it on Embarkation day....we thought about that since we are from Florida too (only 1 1/2 hours from Ft. Lauderdale/Miami) but everyone that came with us are from around here anyway and they wanted to cruise too.

 

It actually might be less hectic on Embarkation day since you will enjoy the whole cruise with any of the hassle!....my wife spent 2 days at the spa doing nails, hair, makeup and we spend 3 hours the day before the cruise with the wedding planner.

 

We booked the wedding at the end of July 2019 for the "wedding" (which never happened) in April 2020.

We picked the dates.  First we chose like 3 cruises we were interested in and then picked the sea days we wanted for the wedding day....then we made sure the room type we wanted was available and put a hold on them. Then we contacted the Royal Celebrations to check to make sure the wedding dates were available and then we picked the cruise.

 

Since it changed 7 times we had to contact both Royal and the Royal Celebrations group....so I had to change everything 14 times....with switching the dates and moving the FCC to each ship....it was exhausting...but worth it in the end!!!

 

With all the changes and extra FCC we were able to switch from a balcony to a 1 br. Grand Suite.  Plus we also had enough to pay for half of our 1st Anniversary cruise next Nov. on Vision's 9 night cruise to Panama and Columbia...with an Aft Junior Suite!

 

The planning for the wedding was exhausting because we had to fill out the paperwork 7 times for the wedding stuff and everything....but in the end the wedding was amazing and the venue we had it in was beautiful....we were married with the windows out to the sea behind the Captain....and we paid for the extra hour for photographer.  Make sure you buy the package for the pictures before and not on the ship!...especially if you want them all! Our package also included all the pictures during the entire cruise........we ended up with a thumb-drive with about 300 pictures on it!

 

Let me know if you have more questions!!