Antlove30Pipes11

Question and I haven't had a chance to search through the threads for what other brides have said/done...

Does anyone plan on setting aside a tip for their servers, bartender or wedding coordinator for their cruise wedding? I know with cruising you pay a flat fee for tips but that is just for the room steward right? I just had a thought that I need to be adding in that extra cost as well. What are your thoughts?

Hi!

I am also getting married in 2019. We decided to get married on the Carnival Victory traveling from Miami to The Bahamas over Thanksgiving week in November 2019. We really wanted it to be easier for everyone to get time off. Since Hanukkah falls around Christmas in 2019 we thought Thanksgiving would be the best choice. We have been spending Thanksgiving on the East Coast since we got engaged in 2016 anyway. We liked the inclusive package that Carnival had just released. I looked into their packages in 2016 when we first got engaged. We thought their new packages with open bar were well priced. We are still trying to figure out what the additional per person cost is as we blew through our first 20 people with our immediate family already. We are planning for about $40-$50/pp additional. Which still isn't bad for open bar.

We plan to get married the second day while at sea. We didn't want our families and friends to miss out on the port days, even for two hours. Plus I think we might extend our reception time even though it is ridiculously expensive to get another half an hour. We thought we would have less people interested in going because of the time of year but everyone seems super excited. We decided to send our save the dates in May because we noticed the cruise we had chosen was booking quickly. In retrospect we could have waited until November 2018. Of course with my future sister-in-law already telling all of our friends what the plan was it didn't make sense to wait.

We are booked for our cruise and our immediate family members who plan to attend are booked. I sent an email out in advance of sending save the dates to make sure our family was able to get the group rate. Our friends are starting to book now.

I am just going through the paperwork and all the do's and don'ts because we have plenty of time to plan. I am trying to stop myself from buying items for the out of town bags. It is really too early to know who all will be able to come in the end. It is over a year away. I don't want to find something really cool and buy a certain amount and then need more later. What if they aren't available later. I also don't want to buy one hundred pieces of an item just to make sure I will have it. I only have so much space at home. hahaha

It does suck that getting married at sea on Carnival you can't have the DJ. I did find some decent mash up list generators of the type of music we like. It's says for an hour reception you need 20 songs. We plan to do about 10-15 classics or songs that we absolutely love and leave space for 5-10 hits as i'm sure they will be different in 2019.

Other than that I have't planned anything else except our actual Invitations. Trying to find some pictures of the most likeliest place that our wedding and reception could be held so I can plan if I want to bring anything for the spaces. Also gathering all my questions as they come to ask our Coordinator. I was hoping to tour the boat when I took a different cruise in Sept 2018 but that trip just got cancelled. At this point our wedding cruise will be the first time I see anything in person so we shall see.

We are also thinking of extending our trip after the cruise wedding just for a couple of days just for us.

The things that I am worried about i'm trying to plan for now. Such as getting my hair done. I'll probably have to put it in braids. Getting my make up done. I did a trial run with my sister and niece for our engagement pictures and I know they can handle it for sure. Getting the guest to wear the color requested by telling everyone word of mouth. Getting people to look at the wedding website before texting me questions. Simple things...