Going to skip the stress of a normal wedding and get married on a cruise. ADVICE NEEDED PLEASE!

foreverandalways0605

Ugh.
That kind of describes how I feel right now.
I have never been one of those women that had their wedding planned since she was a little girl, so trying to figure out what we want for a wedding was becoming very stressful and more about silly little details than the marraige itself.
So to cut a long story short, we have decided (we think) to get married on a cruise.
Not too sure if family will be involved, but if they are it would be at the port we leave from and they would not be on the cruise with us.
Basically I'm asking for any advice, warnings, experiences, stories etc that you can share with me.
Thank you all so much in advance!
Amy.

FutureMrs.McC

Welcome to the board!

Unless the port is close to where your guests live IMO it would be rude to invite them to the wedding and not on the cruise.  Good luck planning.

NYHarleyBride

Additionally, having it at the departure port may allow for people to attend who might not otherwise be going on the cruise and would miss the wedding.

Catalina Island Bound

Well, depending on which cruise lines you use, some of their rules vary. 

I've also heard *SOME* terrible reviews with regard to having the wedding  on the cruise ship with non-sailing guests attending. 

Hence, we're having our wedding on the beach at one of our ports we stop at.  So, in our case, everyone we invited will be on the cruise with us and will be able to participate in any wedding related activites during the entire cruise!

Good luck and don't hesitate to ask any questions!

dew3162

We are getting married on the ship at the departure port but we are also inviting everyone on the cruise as well.  So far we have 6 cabins on the ship booked and hopefully more to come.  It did seem to take some stress away from planning a wedding at home for us but the one thing I don't like is the lack of being able to personalize a lot of things like the cake and flowers without paying an arm and leg extra. 

ukjenn231

Hello!

I felt the same way you did about 5 months ago when I got engaged.

My fiance and I decided to get married in St. Thomas while cruising.  I have read the horror stories, but I feel alright about the decision to do it while docked b/c we are leaving from San Juan and St. Thomas is so close that it is definitely going to be the first stop, but if something such as weather is going on we should know before we depart.

However, I will warn that the second port of the cruise got cancelled, and that moved around every other port.  Thank goodness we picked St. Thomas!

So, we are using Carnival for the cruise but I decided against using their wedding services because it was going to cost 2,000.  I used a wedding coordinator on the island and it is going to cost $500.   Of course, this is a very basic ceremony with no guests.

I did research on getting married at the port, and I think that is a good option.  If you want to use the cruise line, they will all set it up before you depart.  I found Carnival to be the cheapest.  We chose not to do it this way because we just wanted to be alone and avoid family drama all together.

Good luck!  Let me know if you need any help - I researched cruise weddings for months before booking!!

Future Dr. Walker-Jones

Hi,

My fiancee and I thought about the same idea; however, we noticed that the cruise lines usually have a maximum number of people you can invite. So, it kinda defeats the purpose if you want to keep it small. So...check out the number of people they will allow.