What made you choose a cruise wedding?

[cabanners]

I'm a fellow cruise bride and I'm just curious to know what made everyone choose a cruise wedding.

I'll go first...My fiancé and I are recent college/grad school graduates and we didn't have a lot of money to plan a huge wedding like I originally wanted. So, my dad and my fiancé both suggested a cruise wedding because of the relatively low cost. At first, I wasn't thrilled about the idea. But, I decided that if I couldn't have a big, expensive wedding to remember, I wanted to have a very unique wedding that people would be sure to remember! I still have my days where I wonder if it was the right choice, but overall I am really excited for the cruise wedding especially because it's our first cruise ever!

[hunniebee724]

I come from a very big family. My dad has 7 brothers & sisters, and my mom has a huge extended family. I've also kept in touch with almost all of my friends since elementary school. When we started planning, our original guest list topped 300, mostly my family and friends. The waterfront was always special to us, and we knew we wanted to get married by water. We live very close to NYC, and all of the waterfront venues are either close to or over $100 per person. There was no way we could afford that with the ridiculous guest count we had, and we couldn't cut down the guest list without causing some kind of drama with someone. I brought up the idea of a destination wedding a few times, but my fiance wanted to do a traditional wedding. I finally got so fed up with trying to find a way to afford a wedding for 300 people that I told him he can plan the wedding if he really wants a traditional wedding. THEN he said, "well we can look at other options." LOL! We finally chose the cruise wedding because we can get married ON the water, in NYC, still have pictures with the NYC skyline in the background and have a limit on how many guests we can invite. It was the best decision for us because we're getting a beautiful wedding, we get to spend a week with our closest family & friends, AND we're starting our lives together with NO debt from the wedding because we've been able to pay for everything without a credit card!

[LilBlackDress]

Why we had a cruise wedding...

 

Its kinda of a complex story.. My parents wanted to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary by taking the family (I have older sisters) on a cruise. My parents were paying for everything. My oldest sister married, 1 daughter 17 and 2 step kids (late 30s married with kids) The middle sister living with someone for a few years with 2 sons 17 and 19. And myself living with someone for 9 years and a step son (of sorts) 17.

 

Trying to find a cruise that fit into everyone's schedule became such a chore. This one can't get the vacation time, that one is going to be out of the country etc etc. It went on for a few months to the point my father said that is IT. No kids or step kids this is when we are going make it work! And we did. The 8 of us had a great cruise and a great celebration week.

 

My husband and I felt bad that his son was cut out of the plans so we told him for his HS graduation we would take him his girlfriend on the cruise of his choice. As he was looking at the different cruise ships and itineraries he said to me, "did you see the chapel on that one" . Then he asked if I was ever going to marry his father. (I was the one saying no for 9 years). My reply was maybe someday. My stepson said someday is here...

 

So I went to my DH and said "wanna just get married on the cruise" and he said NO, you have told me over and over how we don't need the paper etc so I am fine with how things are. I said "It's now or never" and that is how it all came about.

[dcdiva]

Like hunniebee724, we had a large extended family and an even bigger group of friends. It was not DH's first marriage, and we really wanted a small, informal wedding. With no hope of keeping the guest count under 200 at a traditional wedding, our only hope of keeping things small was to go with a destination wedding. Fortunately, that appealed to us both as we love to travel.

 

Because our elderly parents had some mobility issues, some of the island destinations we looked at were too difficult for them. But a cruise was ideal -- with something for old, young and in between. And it meant our parents could drive to the port instead of flying. To pair down the size of our group, we chose a week long cruise, during the school year but not during spring break and sailed from a port close to our parents, but not close to anyone else. We also chose to get married during the cruise so that only those who sailed with us would be at the wedding. We still invited alot of people -- 100+ invitations, so no one felt excluded and no one was really upset (with the possible exception of my god-daughter who would have loved to be a flower girl). :o Pleased with our plan, we hoped to have no more than 25 to 30 of those closest to us. Unfortunately, we under-estimated our friends and family and ended up sailing with 60 people. But in the end, I wouldn't have changed a thing.

[swalton85]

My fiance and I are both from Rochester, NY, but now live in York, PA, but almost all of our family lives in Rochester. Instead of going through trying to plan a wedding 5 1/2 hrs away, or having all our relatives come down here, we just decided a cruise would be easier. We both LOVE cruising (we've been on 4 together & got engaged on the Crown Princess this past April) so it just seemed like a good fit.

 

The cheaper price tag doesn't hurt either! I don't want to spend $20,000 on a wedding & be paying it off for years to come. We bought a house together in November '09 & I'd much rather put money into the house instead of a wedding!

 

We are planning on doing a reception in the Spring or Summer up in Rochester for friends and family that didn't come, but it'll be a lot less formal and inexpensive than a real wedding.

 

I'm happy with our choice & am actually really excited about cruising with our family and friends! We still might go on another cruise in April as a "real" honeymoon though:p

[cabanners]

I'm loving your stories! :) My fiance and I also wanted to get married without creating new debt and put the money we're saving towards a house. We had the problem with the huge guest list too. It's much easier to explain to people that we had to limit the list because of the non-sailing list (blame it on Carnival! haha)

[VM_Mom]

It is a second wedding for both of us and we also wanted to keep it small and informal - yet special. We are getting married in January and chose the "just the bride and groom" package. It is just going to be the two of us, my two daughters, his son (kids are all teens/adults) and my sister.

 

I went through the stress and massive planning with my first wedding. I wanted something where I could (basically) just show up and get married - but I wanted it to be special and memorable to.

 

This seemed perfect!

[Hossinonimus]

A few years ago, during Thanksgiving dinner, my would be mother in law said, "Save your money. We are going on our Anniversary cruise Jan 2010 and want everyone there."

 

As it got closer, I proposed. One night at work, my boss said, "You should just get married on the ship." I laughed at him. Yeah right. How much is that going to cost. So I looked into it and realized that it was more affordable than doing it at home. I went home and asked, "Hey, do you just want to get married on the cruise?" And that was that.

 

So we celebrated her parent's anniversary, her dad's birthday and our Wedding/honeymoon over 10 days in the caribbean.

[rescue/fire]

we booked our june 5 wedding on glory 4 day to canda..please anyone want to answer my questions lol email me lovebug1717@hotmail.com thanks in advncae

[crislen]

I am a reluctant cruise bride :D (oh, but still excited... the cruise will be a blast!)

 

I wanted a traditional wedding in Canada, either in Calgary or Vancouver where most of our family is. However, my fiance decided 2 years ago to leave his current career and go back to school for 5 years to get his pharmacy degree. Which means, money is super super tight, and if I don't want to wait for 5 more years, we have to have a small wedding since we are paying for all of it on our own.

 

Well, we both come from large families, him from an Asian one which would expect a more traditional asian style dinner (seafood galore) and my Caucasian, scared of seafood other than fish and chips family, would want a hotel ballroom with open bar. Neither of us could see how to make it work without upsetting one side of the family or the other... (my mom is already freaked that this wedding will be all about him and his family and not me)

 

So we stole from his sister who had a cruise wedding out of Long Beach in 2007. Yes, I'm doing the exact same idea as his sister. *sigh* His family loved it (unlimited food and a casino) and I'm hoping my family will like it as well (still have open bar at reception). And it is cheaper even if we pay for those we really want to come. But I don't get my grandparents there to walk me down the aisle or many of my close friends. My best friend (military) won't be able to come and my other best friend (baby due close to date) won't be able to come either.

 

Ack... but the most important part isn't the wedding day itself, but the marriage, and I am so excited to be marrying the most important person in my life!!

 

And well cruising... now that is just a blast!

[cabanners]

Ack... but the most important part isn't the wedding day itself, but the marriage, and I am so excited to be marrying the most important person in my life!!

SO true!! I am a "reluctant cruise bride" too and I have to keep reminding myself that the marriage is most important!

[conbon78]

We chose a cruise wedding because he is Korean and I'm American. Neither of us wanted to have a wedding in our home country. I had never dreamed of what my wedding would be like, so I didn't care about the details of a wedding. We both really wanted to go to Greece and felt like we were able to see more on a cruise than just going to visit. I'm still so glad we did. it was the best experience.

[Powriv]

this will be my only wedding and I am not one to be the center of attention and also didn't want a really formal church wedding. So since my fiance and I both love cruising I suggested a very informal wedding on a cruise ship which is what we are doing. No TUXES!!! Just cruise casual

 

My fiance has been married before so she left me to decide what is best for me and will be less stressful. One of my biggest stresses that I had in my head is if we had a church wedding and family/friends sit on either side of the aisle that my side would be almost empty as I have very few friends and even less family

[tnincy]

simply put..... my hubby and i met on a cruise, got engaged on one and thought it only perfect to marry as a part of one. plus my dream was to always get married on a beach.

[sassy_1782]

Amazingly enough it was actually my fiancees idea and he's never been on a cruise. I've been on 2 and really enjoy them so started to research. He's been married before and didn't really want to go the traditional route with all the drama, but I wanted my immediate family to be able to attend. Thought about sandals or the like, but to expensive for family to come to.

 

What I like so far is:

 

Affordable - We are paying for everything. Unlikely to have help from either side for various reasons. With this we'll probably have most of it paid for prior to.

 

Easy - I had my ceremony, reception and honeymoon basics planned in no time at all. Only have a few details left - mainly which sister to pick as a bridesmaid. I've got 3 and with such a small wedding (20 people maybe) and only one groomsmen all 3 seems like too many.

 

Our family/friends can board the ship for the ceremony & reception and get off before it sales. Luckily we live within an hour of the port.

 

I won't be stressing too much about the planning. I run my own business, so that has enough stress.

 

I get to cruise again:)

 

Plus to celebrate with the rest of our family and friends we're throwing an engagement barbecue this summer.