Very important lessons learned!!!!

[cruiseonthebrain]

Hey folks. Just got married on a cruise and this is not my review, but it is a lessons learned, Hope this will help any new brides to be.

1. Don't rely on this group for ship details, even though we love everyone. Go to your ship and sailing date roll call and hook up with people actually sailing on your ship.

2. Wine lover? Any person boarding can carry on a bottle of wine even if they aren't sailing. Great "present" for the sailing couple.

3. You CAN bring on food as favors. We had candy in tins and had no problem. Also my sister who wasn't sailing was able to carry the fresh bouquet off the day of the wedding.

4. Ask your guests to help with the ceremony and reception baggage ahead of time. We had 8 or 9 bags to carry on. My DH had a back pack and the dress and suit and I had my purse by the time everyone had scrambles to help

5. If the bride is using a make up and hair artist in port before the wedding ask if he or she can go onboard with you. Costs a little more, but it gets rid of a lot of stress. Tiffany drove me to the ship and came onboard with me and did a complete hair re-organization after I put the dress on. So much less stress. She is terrific if anyone needs hair and make up in Port Canaveral or Orlando.

6. Put a written list of directions inside your bag with the ceremony/ reception stuff-the coordinator will do wonders. This was actually my DH's list for himself but our coordinator found it and did everything on her own.

7. Have your tips in envelopes for the staff ahead of time. Have some bills handy in case you want to add to the tips. If you have a good coordinator ask him or her how to distribute.

8. Mark all carry on baggage separately so it doesn't get checked on mistake. We used special wedding ribbon to mark our carry ons and it all made it!

9. Make sure you have all of your paperwork with you including guests' cabin numbers.

10. If you have a good camera, make sure a guest has it to use during the ceremony and reception since you won't be using it.

11. Breathe breathe breathe. And love and remember every minute.

Good luck and well wishes!!!

[stacyj]

This info is terrific!!!!! Who did you have to contact to get you hari person onboard? What kind of food did you bring? Did Carnival deliver the marked carry ons to your rooms? Could you park closer to the terminal if you were the bride? I want to know more!

[Mara4166]

I really like reading the reviews, but even more, I like the lessons learned. I have picked up so many tips from these! They are great and very very useful.

 

After my wedding, I hope to publish another list of lessons learned to help other brides.

 

Thank you so much for sharing yours!!!

[jebuell]

#2 tells me you must be a Carnival bride. I just say that because guests definitely CANNOT bring wine on RCI and several other lines. But for one of the Carnival ships I went on for a wedding the bride just handed a bunch of people OOT bags and each of those had a bottle of wine in it. I walked through with six of those bags, plus the bottle of wine I brought, the bottle of wine my fiance brought, and a third bottle of wine we were hoping to sneak on... so a I total of 9 bottles of wine and the lady didn't even bat an eye or say a word to me!

 

But otherwise good advice for those doing a port wedding! I've been to a couple and it always seems to be a bit chaotic since no one really planned ahead on getting everything on.

[MrsP2B]

ok, so just to clarify...when we put OOT bags together, it's perfectly okay to put those little bitty Sutter Home bottles in them?? i know, it's cheap...but hey, we have 20 people, all but me and another drink wine, and it's a nice way to unwind after the stress of boarding, without whipping out money :) or, so i'm guessing!!

 

is wine the only option?? lol, should i just start a new thread? i'm a planner/MOH, and this is our first cruise, all 19 of us(the 20th has been on carnival before, but due to drama, we barely believe him when he says his name these days)...

[cruiseonthebrain]

I should have clarified- I was on Carnival and I cannot speak for other cruiselines. I in no means meant to imply that I had married on all cruiselines :-) Just Carnival. Security works for the port and not the cruiselines and that is who scans carry ons but maybe they do let different things through for passengers of different cruise companies.

 

With regards to the tiny rum bottle, according to Carnival's policy you cannot bring those onboard. However, I would be surprised if security picked them up in the scan (as long as you don't have 20 in a purse or somthing). The worst things that can happen is that you may be held up in a line for a bit and they may confiscate them. Also, different port terminals have different security folks working with different stressors and temperments. I was told point blank by a reliable travel agent type that the folks at Port Canaveral are generally very helpful and cheerful towards wedding parties while the folks at one other certain port go out of their way to be troublesome.

 

Think of it like this- if it gets through terrific. If losing the mini rum is the one thing that goes wrong, you're still going to have a perfect day. And if you don't want to shell out the money for lost rum (don't blame you there) just don't include it in the bags. If you've already bought it- well there's always use for rum down the road :-)

 

We carried a ton of carry on luggage through and they did not give us a problem with anything. I think one of our guest may have carried other libations through in water bottles ( I am by no means advising this) and also had no problem.

 

Good luck to you!!!! And Congratulations!

[MrsP2B]

lol, i should have clarified! our cruise is carnival also!!

 

and of course you haven't married on them all lol!! although, that would be an AWESOME way to give reviews :) j/k!!

 

yea, that sutter home is the little 4 ounce bottles of wine...

 

but somewhere(was it your post) i found one bottle per guest or some such, is ok. idk, i'll have to call and find out!!

 

as for water bottles, i've heard of people doing that, sometimes they make you take a drink, to ensure it's not explosive if the seal is broken lol.

 

we're going out of galveston...

[Dancinblind]

Great idea about marking the bags with different colors. We have 63 people coming to the wedding (yay 40 days to go!!) with 40 of them sailing. And between me and my fiance and our 5 kids (Brady bunch blending of families, what can I say, lol) needless to say we alone will have more then our share of check in bags and carry on bags.

[cruiseonthebrain]

I must still have rum on the brain :-) I was thinking of the no hard alcohol policy. Yes- each adult can bring a bottle of wine onboard. We had two bottles in one carry on and as long as there were two of us they didn't make us separate the bottles or anything like that.

I forgot to mention in the lessons learned original post about labelling the carry-on bags as well. We made sure each were clearly marked with "Bride and Groom stateroom # xxxx" or "second open stateroom #xxxx", or "Ceremony and Reception". That way if the bags got away from us whoever happened to have them knew where to bring them once they got on the ship.

[Tiffany1203]

Thank you for sharing this valuable information!