Cruise Ship Weddings

When we initially planned our destination wedding, we initially considered a cruise ship wedding. In theory, cruise ship weddings offer the best of both worlds – the ability to get away, while still having all the convenience of a wedding back home.

As we conducted our research, we were extremely disappointed with the options available from the cruise companies. Most cruise lines don’t want you to be able to get married “on board,” instead they offer packages before you leave (before the boat leaves home port) or during the voyage on their private island. We also found it difficult to get information from the cruise lines and nearly impossible to get someone to actually answer questions. But that was our experience.

If you are not dissuaded by our experience, the recent wedding of Andrew and Emily Pidgeon of Palm Bay, Florida should be required reading. You can read about their “wedding experience” on the Carnival Cruise Lines Sensation boat in The Sun Sentinal newspaper. If you’re considering a cruise ship wedding, read the article.

We’ve never actually seen a cruise ship wedding and can’t speak from personal experience. We wanted to write about cruise ship weddings in 2007 and contacted a number of cruise lines, but weren’t able to get a response. Perhaps in the future we’ll have the ability to see one and write about it firsthand.

In summary: Cruise companies are willing to accommodate your wedding…for a price. However, cruise companies are not set up to really cater to your specific wedding needs. Cruise companies can give you a wedding-from-a-box experience, but you need to ask yourself the question if that is really what you want.

Back for Wedding Season

Sorry for the radio silence the last few months. We were on vacation in South America. We’re back!