Destination wedding not sure where to begin

lissypooh628

Hello ladies.. so my fiance and I have decided we want to marry while on a cruise. Honestly, in our minds, we basically want to plan a vacation that we just happen to get married on. We dont want to make a huge deal with friends and family since we know most of them will flake out on coming to the wedding anyway. I have no idea where to begin with the planning. I really want to do it by late fall of next year. Any ideas, suggestions... Thank you!

joeys_wife

Congrats and Welcome! Are you eloping? We are. We're getting married at a Sandals Resort in St. Lucia. We used a planner, she basically did it all. Let me know if you would like her info, I know a couple ladies on here are also getting married on a cruise. The ladies here are the greatest and I'm sure you'll be able to get all the help you need.

ukjenn231

Hello! I looked in to several different cruises and destinations over the past few months before booking my DW last month!! Do you have any destinations in mind, or at least know which port you would like to leave from? I spent so many hours on the Carnival website I should have had all the itineraries memorized. I looked into getting married in the Bahamas and St. Thomas. To get married in the Bahamas, you have to be in the country for 48 hours, so the planners I talked to there said that you need to arrive the day before you want to get married. That means you have to find a cruise that stays in the Bahamas for two days, which is do-able. I know that some cruise lines marry in Cozumel, Mexico but I had read that to get married in Mexico you have to submit blood tests. I am not sure if the wedding coordinators associated with the cruise lines set this up or not. I am getting married in St. Thomas, and theres no waiting period. You can send in your paperwork in advance and then show up at the courthouse the morning you arrive to get your license, and get married after that. There is also no waiting period if you choose to get married somewhere in the U.S. like Key West or (I think) Hawaii. All of the cruise lines have wedding planners. I found Carnival's to be the cheapest, but I would still recommend finding a third party wedding planner because they can save you so much money. Carnival was charging nearly $2,000 for a wedding while in St. Thomas, but I found a wedding coordinator in St. Thomas who is going to do my ceremony and basic photography for a$675. This is long, sorry! You can email me if you have any more questions: jennifer.chapman at gmail.com. I would be glad to talk to ya more, as you can tell I have done plenty of research over the past two months! Best of luck to your wedding planning!

brian&shelli

Hi and welcome to the Board.  We're Cruising aboard the Carnival Elation in April.  We are getting married in port and not on the ship.  I found their wedding packages to be quite expensive for what was entailed.  If you decide to utilize their Wedding Department, you can page Marci here on the DW board and she can give you some insight as that is what she's doing.  We're doing the same exact cruise, just three weeks apart.  I'm DIY'ing the ceremony whereas she's going thru the Wedding Dept. w/ Carnival.  One thing I can tell you as far as Carnival is concerned is that if you book a group booking, you are able to reserve one of their lounges free of charge to use anyway you'd like.  It won't be decorated in any special way, however you can do your own decorating as long as you remove everything once your time is up.  You can have a ceremony, just a quick cocktail reception or both if you can squeeze it in the allotted time given to you.  The minute you mention "wedding", they try to transfer you to the wedding dept. and their rates are quite higher, so if you want to go this avenue, be sure to tell them that you've booked a group booking and would like the group event's department.  :)HTH

nubiannqween

Hi and welcome to the board! There is tons to do, I started with the STD's once we nailed down where we were going. The rest will just flow on its own after that. It did for me anyways. :-)BTW, joeys_wife, I'm getting married in St.Lucia at one of the sandals resorts also. We are booking in the next month or so. What wedding planner did you use? Is it one at the sandals resort?

lissypooh628

Thank you so much for all of the very informative replies!  I think we're going to look into St. Thomas and I guess you can call it "eloping" since I no longer want to invite all 50 of the people on my original guest list.  (long story) :-) I really appreciate the help and I'll definately be checking in with you ladies.Happy Planning!~Alissa