Carnival Cruise Wedding Receptions

[lola2177]

I'm in the early stages of planning a wedding for February or March 2014. I plan on getting married while in the port of St Thomas and am considering using Island Bliss Weddings to coordinate the Wedding. I would, however, like to have a later reception on the boat once it leaves port. Has anyone booked only the reception with Carnival or do they even allow it? If you have, what did they give you for options? I have emailed Carnival and still have had no response. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

[kimberlishaina]

They do allow you to do a reception. I would call the wedding department. I have been working with them for over a year (my wedding is now in 90 days) and they take like 3 days to get back to me via email and sometimes won't answer all of my questions via email. Just some food for thought! Good luck, I will post a review after as I am also doing St. Thomas! Be careful, the "extras" can add up quick as you have to buy your extras through them!!

[jaxie001]

Congratulations Lola2177,

We're doing a bit of the same thing, but I'm this May, using Janelle (shes a complete doll :) We don't have a lot of people but I am in process of trying to find out what the options are once we get back on ship. If I hear anything I'll let you know, we may just do Steakhouse on board and order a cake separately.

[Nkcaf720]

That is exactly what we're doing but for key west. While in port key west we're getting off the ship and having the ceremony with key west company and then getting back on board for carnival reception. Pricing is 700 for deluxe which is 1 1/2 reception and then 600 for 1 hour. We opted for the 2 hour reception for 800. The only thing was that the reception has to be over by 4pm or earlier is what they said. I assume this is bc the ppl working at the reception have to start working in other areas of the ship. So we opted for a 12 to 2 reception to make a lunch out of it. I have a price list they sent me along with dj information but I can't load from my email to the forum using my iPad. I'll try from my pc later for you. We're booking for carnival freedom January 2014.

[lola2177]

Have you looked into the prices for the steakhouse? And do you know if they will close it down completely if you have enough people? That might be a better option for us considering we wanted something after the ship has left port...not something in the middle of the afternoon. Let me know if you get anymore info!

[jaxie001]

Lola2177

 

If you want to shoot me an email jaxie001@hotmail.com I have something to send you.

[aprill121]

I have a price list for a "back on board" reception, also you can rent out the steakhouse, if you want them to make it private however, you have to pay for each seat in the house. for instance if the steakhouse seats 100 people, you have to pay the $30 for each seat, so it would cost $3000. This is what I have decided to do, as the steakhouse has a dance floor, microphones for speeches, a full dinner, and the entire steakhouse from 7pm to 11pm. There is also a 5 disk changer, for first dance ect.

 

If you would like the reception only price list send me an email with cruisecritic as the subject, and I will send it to you... aprill121@msn.com

[michmmosh]

I'd be interested in the price lists and package info everyone has. Waiting to hear back from someone at Carnival about booking the Freedom in October...

 

THANKS! Michelle (michmmosh@gmail.com)

[Bo59rt]

Just a heads up.... its $35 a person for the steakhouse. We are having a "rehearsal" dinner two nights before we are at St. Thomas in the steak house. We have half of the steakhouse booked out for us with 31 people. They did give us a trimmed down "group" menu though, my fiancée is a little bummed that the extra large porterhouse was not included in this group menu :)

 

My FMIL book all of this for us. She went though group planning to set up a cocktail hour before the steakhouse and the dinner. She said it was pretty painless.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Bo59rt
too many words...oopps!

[jj44cruiser]

I'm in the early stages of planning a wedding for February or March 2014. I plan on getting married while in the port of St Thomas and am considering using Island Bliss Weddings to coordinate the Wedding. I would, however, like to have a later reception on the boat once it leaves port. Has anyone booked only the reception with Carnival or do they even allow it? If you have, what did they give you for options? I have emailed Carnival and still have had no response. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Hi there - Is there a reason why you booked the ceremony directly through the island vs. going through Carnival? I'd also like to do the ceremony on an island.. but wasn't sure wherther to book through Carnival or even how to go about booking directly through someone! Are you going to have a reception back on board the ship? Did Carnival give any issues for not doing ceremony with them, but doing the reception? Thank you!!

[lola2177]

Hi JJ44...sorry for the late reply, I never noticed your question until now! I decided to go through Island Bliss simply for the good reviews I heard about them. It's been a year ago now since we started planning so I cant remember for sure...but I think the prices were better than with Carnival. We decided against the traditional Carnival Reception as they only allow you to have a reception on the ship while it was in port. I wanted something in the evening after the ship has left port...so we decided to book half of the steak house and just go for dinner. I had read on here that Carnival isn't overly accomodating when it comes to booking the steakhouse for a reception; However, they had no issue in me booking all the seats on one side of the restaurant. I never inquired about getting a cake or anything as it wasn't overly important to me so I can't comment on that aspect. I had read that they wouldn't allow you to have a cake in the steakhouse so I just didn't even bother asking. As far as I know, they have no issue in hosting a reception for you whether you had your wedding with them or not.

[jj44cruiser]

Thank you, Lola!!

[xkandykane]

Hi, can you guys email me any pricing for a reception to michelleq611@gmail.com?

 

We are considering a reception only on embarkation day. Our family is Asian so we have to do a separate tea ceremony and we don't do the western ceremony. But instead of having a dinner, we are considering a cruise reception.

 

My other question if anyone knows is if the reception price includes food and open bar or will that be separate? We do want hor dourves, open bar and dj at our reception... and can we bring our own decorations?

[Carnival_Brides]

Hi, can you guys email me any pricing for a reception to michelleq611@gmail.com?

 

We are considering a reception only on embarkation day. Our family is Asian so we have to do a separate tea ceremony and we don't do the western ceremony. But instead of having a dinner, we are considering a cruise reception.

 

My other question if anyone knows is if the reception price includes food and open bar or will that be separate? We do want hor dourves, open bar and dj at our reception... and can we bring our own decorations?

 

I could be insanely wrong, but I don't think Carnival just does embarkation day receptions. I think even their private party options (what are usually used for Meet and Greets or cocktail parties) on embarkation day require that all guests are sailing. You might want to call Carnival weddings tomorrow and check if this is an option for you.

Carnival's embarkation wedding packages include the cost of the reception (food, open bar, whatever is specified in the package). DJ will cost extra (I don't think it's that much) and you can bring your own decorations, but you have to designate people to set up and clean-up because no two wedding coordinators or ports are the same.

[xkandykane]

I could be insanely wrong, but I don't think Carnival just does embarkation day receptions. I think even their private party options (what are usually used for Meet and Greets or cocktail parties) on embarkation day require that all guests are sailing. You might want to call Carnival weddings tomorrow and check if this is an option for you.

Carnival's embarkation wedding packages include the cost of the reception (food, open bar, whatever is specified in the package). DJ will cost extra (I don't think it's that much) and you can bring your own decorations, but you have to designate people to set up and clean-up because no two wedding coordinators or ports are the same.

 

You're right, I called again today and they said they only do reception only for private island dockings. I'm going to call again tomorrow and ask can we do a reception if all guests are sailing since closest port is still a six hour drive, no ones going to do non-sailing and driving to go to the wedding/reception. I want to save that extra 1000 from not doing a ceremony :D