Married on Sapphire Princess Apr 18

[ice88]

Specific to the wedding, arranged through TWE, here's my highlights...

 

- group of 26 ranging from 2 - 92 yrs

 

- the booking of the wedding itself was straightfoward, their forms were self-explanatory & their coordinator Alexandra was the one who confirmed all the details a couple weeks in advance

 

- we arranged for a 3:30pm ceremony in the Hearts & Minds chapel, a 4:30pm cake/champagne reception up at Skywalkers lounge & a 7pm dinner at Sabatini's

 

- on the ship, the assistant Purser, Net Figueroa, was our onboard wedding co-ordinator and she did a great job. She showed us all of the locations we would be using beforehand so that we would be comfortable with them (Skywalkers was a last minute change as some other group booked the Wheelhouse bar). She also came by our cabin a couple times to pick up our unity candles, guestbook & extra champagne (we brought 4 bottles with us onboard & paid corkage of $15 for each). She also arranged to have our outfits (2 dresses + 1 suit) pressed without additional charge. We asked for extra champagne flutes at the reception. And, she helped arrange for flower arrangements to be sent to the parents' rooms. We tipped her $20.

 

- My hair was booked ahead of time & Kristna did a great job. I met with her beforehand for 5 mins with some print outs of possible styles and she knew the look I was after. It was very reasonable priced too, an updo for $65 which is hard to match on land.

 

- I had no idea what to do for my makeup, so Net brought me over to the duty-free cosmestics counter, which was offering complimentary make-overs. We booked a timeslot for me & for my mom. The day of, Cornelius applied my make up & it looked fantastic. He really took his time, almost 50 minutes, and I received compliments from everyone. The other girl in the store applied a more basic 25 min effect for my mom. Since it was complimentary, I gave him $25 (there was no way I could have done this on my own) and to my mom's consultant, $5.

 

- The ceremony itself was short & sweet, we started a little late because some of the guests came in late. The live piano music was a nice touch. The room was adorned with two large white daisy arrangements & the aisle had long lit candles in hurricane lamps.

 

- After the ceremony, for about 25 mins, we went for a walk-about with the staff photographer, Scott. He did a really good job, keeping us moving, asking for different poses & getting us out of the sweltering heat. (meanwhile our guests were herded over to Skywalkers to wait for us). He left after the cake cutting, no extra photos for the family shots. But that was okay because we had 3 other amateur photographers in our group. On the last full sea day we met up with Scott who left us with the proofs & the photo packages (he left us alone for the most part & there was no hard sell which I was thankful for). So it was nice & no pressure with us just selecting the proofs that we wanted. But as you can read from other postings, the CD Rom is $500. We had many proofs to choose from, my guess would be 150-200, all sorts of styles, B&W, color, faded. We always knew we wouldn't purchase anything additional to the basic inclusions, since we had so many other photographers on board. In fact, after the walk-around with Scott, we replicated many of the same shots with our friends taking the photos (since we know knew where some key photo spots were). Regardless, I would recommend Scott (we tipped him $20).

 

- Skywalkers Lounge turned out to be a great location for our mini-reception. There was a great view of the ocean, we put in our own music mix in the DJ booth, and there was lots of seating for people to lounge around in. Also, the setting turned out really well for our group photos - a 20's touch with the art deco look. The cake was way more than enough for our group (even tho' over the phone they said it was small & encouraged me to purchase extra). We also received 1 bottle of nice (Moet?) champage included.

 

- Sabatini's dinner was fantastic. Everyone enjoyed the food & we had met the manager beforehand, with Net, so we were comfortable with everything. The only miscommunication was that I thought the waiter was asking about who bar charges would be charged to & I replied that it would be individually charged. However, he meant the dinner cover charge. That had been paid in advance via TWE ($20/person, $12 for the 4 yr old, $0 for the 2yr old - although they tried to charge $22/person until I asked about it... they said the price had risen but maybe that was the TWE charge - as the boat was still $20). So the wait staff charged a couple people in my group but we figured out the problem & they reversed it right there.

 

It was great, really nothing to worry about - they took care of everything - which is why we paid the money.

[vannagreen]

Thanks for the review. I'm so glad all went well! I am actually planning pretty much the same exact wedding (on the Golden Princess) in July. We are having a ceremony at 3:30p in the chapel and then doing a small cocktail hour, then dinner in Sabatini's. I would love to see more photos if you are sharing them.

 

For your ceremony, did you pick music from the options TWE gives, or did they play any other piano music other than the three songs listed in paperwork from TWE?

 

Were your flowers done as requested and did you get a chance to meet with florist on the ship?

 

Did you send any examples of how you wanted a cake or did you go with the basic option in the package?

 

Im going with the basic packege for everything, so just trying to get a better idea of what everything will look like.

 

Thanks again!

[Michele M]

Thanks for the great review. I am getting married on Island princess with the basic package next January. I have a few questions for you.

 

Were you able to talk to the florist in advance? I would prefer a different bouquet than what comes in the package, I saw someone's picture with a beautiful tropical bouquet, but TWE only would take the color choice of the roses in the package.

 

Did you feel like you had enough time with the photographer without feeling rushed. I am considering purchasing an extra hour for the photographer so we can get lots of great outside shots.

 

Do you have an estimated cost of some of the photo packages if purchased in addition to the ones that come in the package. I know the cd is $500, but was wondering about the cost of purchasing the actual photos.

 

Thank you

[ice88]

I'll probably put more photos up at a later date...

 

I chose music from the paperwork provided by TWE & was very happy with it (live piano). I just went to Itunes to listen to samples and chose from that list.

 

Flowers... I had no idea what the flowers were going to look like. If this is important to you I would speak to the florist via the onboard co-ordinator. I'll try to find a pic with their arranagment... which honestly was a little on the basic side. However, it was large. Daisies are usually one of the cheapest flowers, but I guess in their paperwork they don't spell out what sort of flowers you will receive. I was happy with the bouquet & boutinere, but then again, it was a simple 1 color rose bouquet. I chose red so that the flowers would "pop" in the photos. I didn't purchase anything extra for my guests, other than one separate flower arrangement for a guest's room. That was $33. I saw some tropical flowers that you could purchase for your room, I think those started at $48.

 

Cake: I went with what was included in the package and it turned out just fine. They put a couple of daisies on the top as a topper. I didn't provide anything for the cake or my own cake cutter. It was quite tasty!

 

Photos: Well, we got over 150 photos from about 25 mins so we were happy with that. He didn't hang around to take photos with us and our guests (i.e. separate photos with each guest). We did do a couple of entire group shots in the atrium. We got tons of great outdoor shots from the 25 mins (if that's your only concern then I wouldn't worry about purchasing extra time - You may want to save your money for more prints/CD). Purchasing photos individually was $10/ea for 5x7. I think their other packages started at $398, $598 & $798.

[ice88]

here's a couple more photos

[Michele M]

Thanks for posting your pictures.

[RBattle]

I was wondering do the bride and groom get dressed in the same cabin or do they put you in separate rooms??? I am very curious about that.

 

Did you have the bouquet and garter toss?? As far as i know, you can't take flowers off the ship.

 

Do you know if you can bring your own runner to walk down? I wanted to order one.

 

What info did you put with your invitation? Did you tell your guests not to bring gifts on ship since there's duty charge?

 

Sorry for so many questions. I just want to be prepared on my day. Thanks!

[vannagreen]

here's a couple more photos

 

Thanks, what cake frosting flavor is that? It looks a little pink, and very pretty.

[vannagreen]

dbl post