jaxie001

Congratulations!!

Yeah!!!! Congratulations!!! Wishing you all the happiness in the world!!!! Cant wait to see more pics!! I uploaded mine from photobucket, i could not for the life of me get them uploaded from my comp. Let me know if you go photobucket route and i'll try to help you out

Jackie

Yeah!! Thank you thank you...the second link works!! Gorgeous pics, very pretty, love the colours!! Congratulations again and best wishes for many many happy years!!

Congratulations!!! So glad it seemed that people picked up the things that needed to be taken care of for you, thats awesome!

Not sure if ive clicked something wrong but the link doesnt open for me for pics....wants me to login to an email account?

Ohhhhh, I see what you mean. How awful. I'm so sorry that had to happen. Thanks for the warning!!!

 

I've heard that folks have had trouble with their post-wedding ceremony sand shifting around in the vase b/c it wasn't tightly sealed or it was unintentionally laid down, etc.

 

Even though it's not the same as from the ceremony, I would just buy the same sand again and re-fill it (together) at home to make it look just as nice.

I really didnt think amything would happen to it i was more worrird sbout the settling thing, the circus show in our cabin was probanly hilarious with us packing sand down filling a bit more packing down filli g a bit more lol.wish ide read that advise before so hoping it helps someone!

Yes the plan is to refill it, just have to buy the sand loland try to make it look close as we can :)

Jaxie - why do you highly recommend that the sand ceremony kit is brought in your carry-on luggage? I am reserving that space for my wedding dress, shoes and accessories, and a change of clothes "just in case" the airlines loses our stuff! Or are you referring to embarkation-day weddings and keeping the sand ceremony kit with you while boarding the ship?

Hi mine went down in checked luggage in the plane we figured wrap tightly in clothes and sand shouldnt displace on trip home. We got home unpacked and found that tsa had removed the cork from decanter and actual shook it around! Maybe they have seen it used as asmuggling source before to hide things in sand but i obviously was heartbrojen to pull it out of my suitcase with a quarter of the sand missing and it all mixed all together. We didnt do embarkation cereminy ut was the trip home where it was ruined.

Congrats and thank you so much for your review. It sounds like you had a lovely day and vacation. I have 7 days left until our embarkation day wedding and the nerves are beginning to set in. After seeing your pics of the sand ceremony I am wishing I was doing that with our children to blend our families into one.

 

Thank you again!

Carolyn

Aww how nice!!!I To be honest the sand was bought pretty much the weekend before we went away. I had liked the idea and wanted to do it, but coultnnt find a nice decanter i liked, then the sand was too expensive andd then it was going to take too long to get the sand sent to me. Went to the Michaels a town over and voila! Bought a kit with the decanter and they had enough colours of sand we could all pick one out that we liked and went together well. Just make sure you carry it on carry on if your flying,don't pack it in your checked luggage!! Just a word of advice. Best wishes and congratulations!!! No nerves...just have fun, thats what its all about :) I'll watch for your review :)

After dinner mom in law had offered to take our son with her to her room for the night so off we went to have some drinks and celebrate with some of the guests. It was all very informal, a few had turned in for the night. The rest of us danced near the casino to the small band playing there that night and more Congrats from others and some people buying us drinks. We told them they didn’t have to we had cheers program but they wanted to toast the bride and groom. Others stopped us with best wishes and how they had seen us that morning departing and how was the wedding, the kindness of all these strangers wishing us well and happiness was certainly heartwarming. We wrapped up the night at the Alchemy bar and spent some time with the cruise director Matt who is a blast and hilarious!

After thought …..I didn’t think of it til we had been home a couple weeks but we didn’t designate a wedding dance or song…at the time it didn’t really matter but looking back I kinda wished we’de thought of a song in particular and asked the band to play for us.

Next day was Thursday and we were in San Juan, We took the free trolley to the Fort and paid 4 dollars to go in and explore, after that we wandered the streets down to the old San Juan gate and walked the path back along the water, San Juan is very rich in history and if we get back there we’ll probably tour the city more.

Friday, Grand Turk- we had pre booked golf carts and were going to tour the island on our own. We found Nathan just outside the gate with the carts just as he said, we signed a form and off we went, what a blast!!! There were 3 carts between 9 of us we went all the way to the lighthouse, pet the donkeys at the reserve, and on the way back we veered off and down to a deserted beach. The property looked like at one time being developed for a house or resort but after a hurricane had just been deserted. The beach was gorgeous and we pulled some conch shells from the water. Swam a bit and then made our way back. We pulled up on the street and found the entrance to Jacks Shack!! Jack was there and came over said hi welcome to my place LOL we were down past the business of Margaritaville and it was absolutely fantastic! The atmosphere was great, the drinks were cold, and we had a great time, we wandered down after to meet some of our crew at Margaritaville who were doing the flow rider, I got shots of the guys doing great at it. At some point my hubby and I had decided to part ways and I hung with friends and the kids and boarded back on with them. He went off to show his mom where to shop since he didn’t want her going alone. We met up in the cabin and he said I know I’m a couple days late and gave me a wedding gift…I told him he was nuts and shouldn’t have and he said well ship is moving so I can’t take it back hope you like it LOL…yah right who wouldn’t like a blue and white diamond bracelet :D Hes pretty darn good at getting a deal with the jewelry shops and has managed to come out way ahead on our last cruise with tanzanite and this time with this bracelet, and I am counting myself lucky he has fantastic taste in jewelry.

Saturday was a sea day and we just enjoyed our last day with family and friends and our last day of holidays.

Sunday morning we docked again in Miami all very sad our trip was over but so very glad we had planned our wedding the way we had and enjoyed our wedding so much! Our QLS driver was right on time and back to the airport we went with no issues.

Note to those with a sand ceremony……. We got home late that night and pretty much went straight to be since we all had work/school in the morning. It wasn’t until that night I went to unpack our sand ceremony vase and found the TSA sheet in my suitcase. I started to panic as I realized the vase was not safely cocooned in the clothing I had wrapped it in. My advice…if you do a sand ceremony and are flying out…put it in your carry on!!! Hopefully when it goes thru security you standing there explaining what it is will suffice. I wish I had done this….they removed it from my bag, dumped out some sand and then shook the rest…I sat on the kitchen floor and bawled! I was shocked they hadn’t realized what it was, I understand security and all but wonder if they went a bit too far? We have decided we are going to go and buy the same colours of sand and try to somewhat duplicate the original.

All in all a fabulous wedding and trip, wouldn’t change a thing even with the few hiccups…that’s what makes for memoriesJ

Would highly recommend Janelle of Island Bliss Weddings , Elisha Orin Photography, Stuart Scott, and Villa Botanica…..they all went above and beyond to make our day truly special and unique to usJ Any questions feel free to email me or post here…Ide be happy to help how ever I can.

Jackie

Oooooo very nice!!! I love the photography and colors!!!! Yay pretty!

Thank you so much! I love that you 2 jumped un the ocean like that!!! Fantastic! Loved your printed items too they look sooo nice! You did so much work at it shows, congratulations to you again as wrll :)

I am loving this!!!! still hoping you can put up some more pictures of villa botanica!!! we are finalizing one of our (hopefully two) shoots with Elisha. Your review is making me want my wedding NOW, even though I have like 33% planning finished! I can not wait for next April Fools Day!!!!

 

wow I think that is the most !!!!! I have used in a while, this is how much your review is hitting home with me! :D

Awwwwe that is so sweet, i am glad your finding it helpful, i used these boards soooooooo much thru planning im grateful i got the help and glad its helping you! I do have more pics of the grounds at VillaBand gardens if you look down there after my past cruises and drop me a line i can email some to you?

2 shoots with Elisha???? Wowsers she is so much fun, so real we just lived her personality. Which planner are you working with? You can bet i'll be following your journey!

awesome review! What a special wedding. I think if i read this before i mightve choose an island wedding LOL!

Aweee thanks we had a blast :)

Fabulous review and beautiful pictures! Congratulations and thanks for sharing :)

Planning is going well! We are taking the carnival Valor out of San Juan in February. We've already done this same itinerary on the victory and loved it! I loved your pictures, were they all taken around the villa or did you go into town? I'd love to go into the town and take some to have some variety- not just pictures on the beach.

 

 

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I sso want to do the san juan itinerary!!!Hoping the ships on that route get the 2.0 full upgrade early 2014 lol

We did pics in town right after disembarking after courhouse with Elisha orin. The ride to Villa was probably 15 minutes or so and we tried to streamline our time.

Loving your review! We are doing very much the same thing as you...Island Bliss weddings(we chose Lindquist Beach), then dinner at the steakhouse on board. Beautiful pictures! Congrats :)

Thank you Lola!! Ohh how exciting! How is planning going for you? Janelle is fantastic to work with, which ship are you taking?

Anyone who is considering Villa Botanica….It is absolutely gorgeous and I am so glad we chose it as our place. The pictures you can access on line only give you a snippit of the venue, we tried to get pictures around the area but there are so many spots and only so much time to be there. Rest assured the flowers and foliage are vibrant, the views and architecture are breathtaking. If you want tropical but not a beach, this is your place!! I can’t say enough great things about Jackie and Klaus at Villa Botanica!

We stayed til 3 and as we left the property we had some chocolates in thank you boxes we had brought with us and we had also had Janelle arrange for small rum bottles in souvenir bags to be on a table for everyone to take as guest favours. We then met the shuttles again and made our way back down to the port area. We all wandered as a group around the port area taking some candid pictures of us all and did some shopping. And then…it started to rain, justa wee bit but enough that we went back to the ship to get organized for dinner.

We got lots of compliments and Congratulations as boarded the ship again. Took our son to get changed and off to Camp Carnival so we could have dinner in the steakhouse. Steakhouse dinner was amazing, everyone enjoyed their dinner and the ambience was excellent. We had arranged with the maître de to pause briefly after main course so my hubby J could go get our son so he could have cake with us…the maître de was overly obliging with this and thought definitely he should be there to share this occasion. He came back facepainted as a ninja bunny LOL

The slab cake we had ordered through group bookings was to feed 25…I would have thought more like 50!! And it was very tasty, chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling butter cream icing and the decorated with the topper and shells we left them previously…they had also placed strawberries around the base, it was very “pretty” Some ship’s officers were having a break at the steakhouse bar and they were more than obliging to pose for some pictures with us.

After dinner mom in law had offered to take our son with her to her room for the night so off we went to have some drinks and celebrate with some of the guests. It was all very informal, a few had turned in for the night. The rest of us danced near the casino to the small band playing there that night and more Congrats from others and some people buying us drinks. We told them they didn’t have to we had cheers program but they wanted to toast the bride and groom. Others stopped us with best wishes and how they had seen us that morning departing and how was the wedding, the kindness of all these strangers wishing us well and happiness was certainly heartwarming. We wrapped up the night at the Alchemy bar and spent some time with the cruise director Matt who is a blast and hilarious!

After thought …..I didn’t think of it til we had been home a couple weeks but we didn’t designate a wedding dance or song…at the time it didn’t really matter but looking back I kinda wished we’de thought of a song in particular and asked the band to play for us.

I think we wrapped up town pictures around 12:15 ish and with Elisha driving we started to make our way up the mountain to Villa Botanica. The drive was beautiful and the scenery breathtaking, Elisha was a great tourguide on the side of being a photographer!! We arrived at Villa Botanica, and waited a short time to be led up to some paths and the pool area…OMG for a view!! We started wandering back down the path where we met up with Stuart Scott our officiate (also Janelles hubby) He took Dan to talk to him and I stayed with Elisha and walked back down to the guest house to wait til it was time. Our guests were picked up at 12:30 on the pier by private shuttles and got to Villa before 1. We had arranged with Villa Botanica to have the open bar the entire time we were there in case people were hot and thirsty. Somewhere just before the ceremony Janelle arrived and came to say hi, my daughter son and I waited in the guest house a few more minutes until Stuart started calling down my daughter.

Both of my parents have passed on and I had my sister walked me down the aisle which was special to us both.

My fiancées nephew was to use our Ipod dock and ipod and cue the music when told, now unfortunately something happened to the ipod and it was on shuffle, so when the first song played and my other half looked at him like what the heck….? He figured it was wrong and turned it off LOL Which was fine, at that point in time, music didn’t matter, we were here and that’s all that counted J

Stuart was an awesome officiant, he did a really nice “non-denominational” ceremony and it was very informal and relaxed, we had our son bring us the rings in our Treasure Chest ring box we made (pics in another CC thread) the 4 of us as a family all took part in a sand ceremony, we each had a different colour, and we felt it tied the 4 of us together, The whole ceremony part lasted 20 minutes maybe and we walked down the aisle and around the back row of chairs and right up the steps to the bar where the owner of Villa Botanica was being bartender. We toasted with a rum punch and beer and them started the line of congratulations from guests. Elisha caught a lot of these moments on camera and each time I look at the pics I can see the emotion the everyone was feeling in the moment of the picture. She is so truly talented!

We socialized a bit then down to the garden area for pics with everyone and some pics with the fountain.

NOTE…..assign someone to take pictures with your own camera if you want that, we didn’t think of this and then kinda had to wait til we got home and other people emailed us pics of theirs of the ceremony!

My BFF got me dressed and laced up while I applied some make up, my daughter had gone to her room gotten dressed (she had loved her grad dress and we had agreed if she didn’t grow too much she could wear it again for the wedding) Which was perfectly ok with me J My daughter took pics of me and the BFF and out on the balcony of the ship. The plan was to have my fiancée and son meet Elisha on the pier, my daughter and I to follow about 15 minutes later, Elisha planned to capture first look photos on the pier. Before we left the cabin I sent my sister with the wedding gift I had my BFF pack and bring along down to the lobby to give to my fiancée….luckily enough he had a few people down there with and they took pics of him opening it.

Exiting the ship my daughter and I had many compliments and shout outs of good luck and best wishes, we were pulled aside by a carnival employee who let us use the wheelchair elevator instead of taking the stair in the crowd and many folks had us go ahead of them,….they said we had more important places to be LOL

We walked down the fence to the gate and there Elisha saw me and stepped back and started shooting pics…what a surreal moment that we were here, and this was all happening J

My fiancée and my son looked really sharp in matching linen pants and vests over vibrant blue shirts, and my son in his signature fedora!

Elisha took some shots of us all together walking away from the ship and then we got in her car and she drove us to the courthouse, took us where we needed to be, took more pictures in the courthouse, signed our paperwork and then back outside, took maybe 15 minutes in the courthouse and the drive there was maybe 5 minutes. We left the courthouse and Elisha led us around town, went to all the spots I had mentioned to her and she threw in a few more very cool spots.

http://www.elishaorin.com/#!__page-1

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Kissing Booth!!..http://www.elishaorin.com/#!__page-1

Wednesday ….Wooooo hoooo the big day finally. :D

Little Back ground info-------We got engaged Christmas Eve 2011,Decided on the Cruise/destination idea mid January, I started researching cruise wedding vs an on island planner immediately…we decided on an on island planner for a couple reasons. We had more choice and say in how our day went, where we wanted it to be, timing than what was offered to us thru the cruise line. We knew we definitely wanted to be married on an island mid cruise over embarkment day and didn’t want a beach wedding. It was just the way we saw our day happening. I found Janelle Scott of Island Bliss and emailed her to ask a few questions and was struck right away with the warm vibe I got from her. We perused her blog and website and found a picture of a stone arch and both said right away…Doesn’t matter where that is…That’s it!! I emailed back and forth a bit with Janelle, found out it was Villa Botanica, a rentable historic Sugar Mill up the side of the mountain, she emailed a circle with me herself and the owners of Villa Botanica and bam We were booked, venue and planner in March 2012…we didn’t even book the cruise til November LOL

We asked Janelle for recommendations on photographers, and she sent me a list of photographers and their websites to see their work, we immediately fell in love with Elisha Orin’s work and with a couple emails we were booked. I had emailed with Elisha a few times, and again with the warm vibe, I sent her some pictures I found on her blog of places we definitely wanted to shoot and were all set.

Back to the day….. We had ordered room service the night before, got up other half and I had a coffee together and with a “see ya later and a kiss” off I went with mom in law and daughter to the Spa. My sister came to take pics of us in the spa getting hair done, had a few teary moments but all good, not too sure what happened with my daughters hair tho, we had discussed a fishtail braid was told no worries but she walked out with long curls?? Wish I had paid more attention to what was going on in the other chair LOL Took longer than expected and having make up done was not an option…went back to cabin, my BFF met me and we proceeded to get me into my dress. I had a Sotero Midgely tea length gown that I had altered slightly on bodice with diagonally striped satin overlay and left a “bust shelf” of lace. Loved my dress and everyone who saw it said it suited me to a “T” fun and whimsical. I ordered electric blue shoes off an ebay seller and they were perfect. My bouquet was a brooch bouquet I took my time and made myself (there are pics on another CC thread) and my daughter had a brooch bouquet we made as well.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1845159

Went back to the room to change for dinner around 530 ish . Meeting rest of our crew in MDR in a bit for dinner. Interesting, I can’t change for dinner ….since I have no suitcase…We had paid for FTTF to make sure our bags got to the room early as well…called to guest services, they were going to check, for bag, suggested I come down to desk and speak to someone, spoke with guest services they would check with Security for the bag, asked a couple times if there was “contraband” in my bag…I said uhhmm no I just bought the Cheers program why would I have wanted alcohol in my bag, they laughed and said good point LOL Electrical contraband? Nope just a hair straightener… I explained only other items other than my clothes were assorted items for our wedding ceremony. told me they would be in touch…We walked a few feet away and I could feel Niagara Falls starting…starting to think ohh no what if the things for the wedding don’t make it?? We turned around and a couple officers saw my waterworks starting asked if I was ok could they help, we repeated the story and they then said follow us and took us to 3 different spots on the ship where my suitcase could have ended up….but with no luck. They definitely went above and beyond to help. They took me then to another person who took a description of the bag who said they were going to contact Miami cruise port to see if bag was still there and they would forward it to Nassau if need be. Thanked him for his help and went back to the cabin. Had a good cry, then there was a knock at the door…..Fiancee opened the door…and there was Albert….looking like an Angel with my bag!! I pretty much vaulted over the bag into the hallway to hug him…he explained that the number on the porter tag the 4 resembled a 9 and it had gone down the hall a few doors. Crisis averted. Told you there was a story to Albert….at this point my other half generously tipped Albert since he had really saved things for us. Got changed and off to dinner.

Monday…Port Day Nassau In Bahamas

About 10 of us wandered off the ship started to wander around the shops, had a man approach us about hiring him for a tour, we made a deal for 90 bucks, for all of us together and had a great time. He took us to a lot of places Atlantis, The Fort, showed us sights, lots of laughs, well worth the money. There is quite the resort being built. Baha Mar is being built East of the Port a ways, Cable Beach area I think they said. Looks absolutely massive, may give Atlantis a run for their money?

Tuesday was a sea day, we planned to soak up some sun, enjoy time with family and friends and relax for the wedding the next day. Got a call that morning to come to the Steakhouse, they wanted us to take a look at where they wanted to seat us and make sure it was ok bring our cake topper and any other decorations we had. WE went down they had a fantastic spot picked out, they had originally said we’de have to take 2 separate tables for our group, but they said since there was not a lot of prebooked reservations that night they were going to re=arrange some tables and put us all together at 1 table! I was thrilled J we gave them our cake topper and some shells we wanted on the cake, and basically left it to their discretion how to arrange them…Just pretty was all I asked, the maître De, said your so relaxed, that’s nice to see, and said he would personally make sure it was “pretty”

Albert the room steward had been still overly attentive asked if I wanted my dress steamed, I said I had thought of it but knew it was too late now, he said nonsense, I’ll make it happen…and off went the dress to be steamed. He would have taken the guys shirts too but they were looking pretty good and didn’t need anything. I also had a brief meeting with a girl in the Salon, took my headpiece and pictures of how my own hairstylist at home had done my hair so they could see what I wanted. My teen daughter came along so we could talk about what they were doing for her. My mother in law to be didn’t come but we explained to them what she wanted. I asked about someone to apply the make up I had brought and if there was time they would be able to do that as well. I don’t wear a lot of make-up usually but I figured someone with steadier hands than mine that day would be good LOL

This day was also my nieces 25th birthday, we all had dinner together in the dining room, waiters all came and sang, and had a nice night.let our son go to Camp Carnival a few hours, watched a show, and went to bed somewhat early to be rested for the Big day!!

I think we arrived at the Port by maybe 11:30 11:45…(too excited to just be there didn’t think to look at my watch lol) Some of the group had pre-paid for the FTTF (faster to the fun) We wanted to get on board and get some appointments confirmed, some others wanted to book the Behind the Scenes tour on the ship. When we walked up to the doors there were A LOT of people standing outside, we asked about FTTF line? We were told by Carnival employees standing outside that there were extra disembarking checks going on from the cruise that had just gotten back so no one was getting in thru customs just yet, directed us around the corner to wait. Which was fine until we had waited close to an hour in a slow moving line which was “NOT” a FTTF line and they had directed us in the wrong line. We asked at the door when we got in about the FTTF and she said “What you’ve been waiting there? You should have been over here.” Now one of our group is social like theres no tomorrow and somehow managed to talk to others in the line, not Carnival employees and jumped to the other line (they did have FTTF), long story short he and his wife made it onboard, booked their tour behind the scenes and had been in the bar over ½ hour before we made it onboard.

Will I book FTTF again? Meh…probably not our other guests travelling with us were in their cabins probably with in a 20 minute time frame from us. Do I think my fault in wrong line? No, I think maybe Carnival Employees should have directed people a wee bit better. Onboard made it to cabin 7334, dropped neice and daughter just down the hall at their interior room. Our steward came right away to introduce himself, Albert, Very nice man, super helpful (there is a story to this I’ll get to lol) We had 3 in our balcony room, one bag was in room when we got there, dropped our carry ons and went out to confirm appointments.

First stop, Spa and confirm hair appointments, I had managed to get the name and number of the person at Steiner group who does the pre-booking for the spa for hair and booked appointments for 3 people for the morning of the wedding about 2 months in advance. Upon arrival at the spa to confirm, I presented the emails I had had with the girl at Steiner and the people behind the desk recognized her name said ohh yes not a problem we”ll just check it in computer. After about 5 minutes of searching computer I was told nothing had been actually booked. Not letting it phase I just said well ok, so your going to put it in now for that morning at the same time I was told I was booked for in this email and when can I come and see that hairstylist for a few minutes to show her the pictures I have of what I want? The person working was a little surprised and said well let me see what time I have available, I then said ohh we”ll be here at the time I was confirmed in the email since our day after that has been timed for that. I gave him the email from Steiner again and he then said ohh yes no problem. Took our cabin info and we were all done in 3 minutes.

Off to the steakhouse to confirm our reservation for dinner the night of the wedding, not a problem there, they confirmed with me there as well the cake order we had made a couple months before through group bookings.

Went back to the cabin to drop off my “wedding bible folder” and noticed one more suitcase had arrived. One more to go…hmmm why aren’t they showing up together?

Off to the Lido to meet family and friends and a couple drinks and enjoy Sail away party!!

Congratulations!!

Love your brochure and bags!! Do you still have the design for your brochures?

The brochure was done completely on the vistaprint siteusing a pre dtawn template. I moved a few things around and some of my own pics but the site is so eady to use, basically plug and play. And really nice quality. It was so less frustrating than playing with pdf or word filrd.

I'm glad to hear that you did your wedding for you! I'm having that problem while picking out bridesmaid dresses.

 

I really liked the things you made with Vistaprint! I'm using them also for things for my welcome bags. Your brochure looks awesome!!

 

I noticed you flew out of Buffalo. I live in the Buffalo area. I'm getting married in St. Thomas in November. How did the details of your wedding go? Where did you get married on St. Thomas? Who did you go through to plan the wedding?

 

Can't wait to hear more!!

Thanks, we are very glad we did it for us as well...:)

Vista print is fabulous, it was cheap (with a email coupon i got) and it arrived super fast!

We like to fly from Buffalo, we actually live other side of border west of Hamilton. The drive to Buffalo airport is almost the sametime as driving to Toronto airport but no where near the traffic of fighting Toronto traffic! I'm hoping to get more up posted tonight continuing my review :)

is your wedding the newest blog post on Janelle from island bliss's blog? if it is i love the photo of the "kissing booth"!!!! Can't wait to run across more brides/pictures of Villa Botanica. waiting for your review of that!

Pretty sure that's us your talking about LOL...Janelle is such a sweetheart, if you have her booked you have no worries at all!! Elisha Orin walked us past the red booth and was like Can you fit in there?? LOL...We'll definitely try :)

OK, so finally finding some time to get my thoughts on “screen” of our experience of Carnival Glory and our May 8th wedding on St Thomas. We love to travel, loved our last cruise, this is 2nd marriage for us both after 11 ½ years so we decided destination/cruise was the way we wanted to go. I’ll be honest and say that this was not what family/friends expected or wanted from us and there was definitely some heartbreak and tears along the planning stages. We hit a stage where we said enough is enough, this day is about us and our kids and what makes us happy…and we quit trying to justify other peoples guilt in not coming.

My advice…Brides-Grooms…it is your day, no matter how many times you have done it before, no matter who your marrying…make it the day of your dreams and exactly how you want it to be that makes you happy. Only you and your intended other half can make the choices of how you envision your day…you want to wear bright yellow dress with purple polka dots go for it! You want to wear golf shorts with a bow tie tux go for it….If you think you can’t get married with out all your family there, and they are not willing to travel, don’t try to change their minds, it is only a lesson in frustration If they refuse to come just because “unless you go to my favourite resort I won’t be there” …. ‘nuff said J .…then you have some choices to make, we only know with in ourselves what is going to make that day the most memorable for ourselves. If you have family that can’t come/travel for medical reasons, that is a whole nother ball game, and needs to be treated specially.

We had delivered our OOT bags to our guests a few days before leaving, and they were all pleasantly surprised and thought it very thoughtful of us to do that. I was thrilled the work that went into them went over well.

Flights were out of Buffalo direct to Fort Lauderdale, all 16 of us at once LOL Used Air Tran, packed my dress in a garment bag carry on. Tried to confirm with Air Tran that garment bag would be ok dimension wise...3 calls were made to airtran, first one couple months before said ohh no problem they will hang in closet on plane. Being the nervous detail checker that I am called again 2 weeks before and this person said absolutely not, no way would have to check the bag or “fold” it small enough to fit in standard carry on bag!!! My response ohh no I don’t think so!! 3rd person I spoke with when I called back after I calmed down, very nice woman assured me garment bag is not measured same as a true carry on so should be ok, and to ask at the gate after we check in if they have a closet they can hang the bag. Flip ahead to desk at the gate told me to ask flight attendant at end of ramp…So at this point I’m like ok so dress is coming on plane, with me…this is a good thing J They did not have a closet available but since we had 6 people sitting in 2 rows we were able to make sure that dress bag was able to be laid out over top of other carry ons!! Flight attendant was nice and put our things in closed the door to overhead bin said that even if someone else tried to put items in that spot on top of dress she would look after it and make sure nothing went on top of it. She did and when we landed we just waited til others around us were out then pulled garment bag out. They wished us best of luck and Congratulations as we exited the plane.

Lesson learned…don’t take word of person on phone at airline that there is a closet…if you want to know for sure, find make of plane online and google floorplans for the plane, it will tell you if there is a closet on board. I found this website helpful.

http://www.seatguru.com/

Jump ahead to Fort Lauderdale…flight was good, so very glad to see the palm trees outside the airport window LOL

We had pre-arranged transportation from FLL to Miami cruise port. After researching a lot of companies and reading reviews and getting quotes we went with QLS. The price was a dollar or 2 more per person, than the closest competitor but it ensured us a private mini-bus for all 16 of us and a grocery stop versus a shared ride and having to pay extra for the stop. They called us as we were collecting our bags and told us exactly where our driver would be and he was on time, friendly and helpful. I think we paid just over 400$ for 16 people return private bus. Will definitely book them again if opportunity arises. Off we go, quick stop at a grocery for some wine and snacks and off to the Port. During the ride to the port we gave each guest a personalized pamphlet of wedding information we had designed and printed thru Vista print, and a lanyard with a card in it with a cute saying.

I actually think my doctor plans on doing this, or something like it (my insurance won't cover A LOT).

Feel free to FB me or email if you have questions about it my email is on my about me :)