A Cruise Wedding on the Disney Dream

XSeabiscuitX

Duffy's Biggest Fan
Joined
Mar 3, 2012
So I realize planning journals seem to be way less popular than they once were, but honestly I'm mostly hoping typing all this up will help me sort some stuff out that I'm still trying to decide. And I'm purposely leaving most everything off my blog until the wedding's over for a variety of reasons, but maybe this will help out some other Disney Cruise Line brides in the meantime. Reading other bride's, even when they're several years old, has helped me a lot. I even randomly found out one of my friends was at someone's wedding on a cruise a couple years ago because a picture of him was in their planning journal.

Update: I have now moved everything over to my blog Twenty Something in Orlando. So if you'd like to keep up with this, please check out this link.

Backstory: I grew up in East Tennessee and moved to Orlando on the Disney College Program in 2013. Jay has lived quite literally all over the world (Italy, Oman, Australia, New Orleans, Colorado, and more) before he came to Florida in 2015. We met while working at the World Famous Jungle Cruise. Let me tell you, when you put two Skippers together, the puns NEVER STOP, even though I hung up my mic a while ago.

Fast forward to March 21st, 2019. He tells me we're going to Magic Kingdom for a tour. Well, there was a tour, but first this happened.

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Please note the Duffy Bear, that'll be important later.

I have never particularly wanted a big wedding or had a dream wedding in mind. I've always said I only cared about the dress, the cake, and the pictures. Even then, I was going to forget the dress and the pictures and we had this whole idea semi planned for when we eventually were ready at our favorite restaurant in Orlando. Well, the manager left the restaurant and then the stars aligned where I realized I would be able to get my dream dress at a fraction of the cost. (I'll explain that at some point.) This put me on a path to inquiring about the Magic Kingdom bridal photo shoot, because that's all I've wanted for as long as I can remember and now that I had the ability to afford the dress, it was suddenly a possibility.

Well, fun fact, they won't let you do a Magic Kingdom bridal shoot unless you have a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding. You can do any of the other parks, but you can't do MK. So now I was on a mission to find the most cost effective option for a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding.

Oddly enough, the answer is Disney Cruise Line. The least expensive Disney World wedding starts at $3,500, and you only get four guests. Now the Disney Cruise Line weddings have gone up to $3,500, but when I started booking it was $3,000 for an on ship wedding, and it included up to sixteen guests. You can add additional guests as needed for $20 a head. While we never had a huge guest list, this solved a lot of problems for us. There's also a lot less customization with a DCL wedding so that's unfortunate, and I've had to accept that I'll never get the cake I've always wanted, but for a Disney wedding in our price range that lets us have basically everything else we could ever want, I'll live.

For two people who have spent a lot of their lives on boats, getting married on one just makes sense.

We are getting married on the Disney Dream, sailing out of Port Canaveral, March 2020. The wedding is set to take place on the ship on Nassau Day, most likely in the Outlook. I've never been on a cruise, and Jay's never been on a Disney Cruise, which is why you might have seen me on the cruise line forum with a lot of questions. So welcome to my planning journal.
 
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Our theme is part cruise line, part Duffy Bear. Remember how I said to remember him because he'd be important? Duffy is actually my favorite thing in the world, and Jay took me to say good-bye to him on his last day at Epcot. This little bear has been important to us since day one and Jay is letting me put as much Duffy as possible in our wedding.

Alright, so first up, invitations! I happen to be a graphic designer in my spare time, and I had a blast putting these together. I searched the internet for ideas, and I found some on Etsy and Pinterest that somewhat inspired these, but I built them from scratch in Adobe Illustrator and had them printed through Vistaprint. I actually was able to recycle art I had done of Duffy a few years ago so I didn't have to redraw him, thank goodness. I'm pretty sure he took me seven hours the first time.

(Ignore the weird white space, that happened when I was blacking out some of the personal info.)

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For the RSVP cards, I went with post cards. Honestly, I'm not sure I should have bothered with the RSVPs. I wound up helping half the guests book their cruises myself so I have all their info already.

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We're going to be having a very unofficial bar hopping night at the Boardwalk when we get back for anyone who can't come on the cruise.
 
It seems like a Disney Wedding is a great way to celebrate how you two met. Great invitations to tie in a Cruise Wedding & Duffy the Bear!

Planning journals may not be as common anymore, but I love reading them!
 
So we're currently up to 20 guests, which is more than I ever thought we'd have and we might be picking up a couple more. I'm starting to get worried we might end up over 30 and lose the Outlook. I realize most people prefer the Atrium, but I really like the idea of not having to lose time moving through the ship. I like the Meridian Patio also, but I'm not a fan of wind.

Time for the story about the dress and how this all got started. I have a friend who is an incredibly talented costumer. Travels for cosplay and conventions, competed in Spain and got second place in the world. I do not consider myself a photographer, but I wound up being the photographer at her wedding. Well, rather than her paying me, I took it in trade. She's making my dress and I only have to pay the materials, which is awesome! We're currently set to meet up the first weekend in August to finalize the design and go fabric shopping. What I have in mind is a combination of two different retired Alfred Angelo designs so I'm super excited about that.

Our colors were originally going to be pastels because I thought they would be pretty, but now we've decided to go full on nautical with red and blue.

We're not having a traditional wedding party. I'm probably going to get made fun of for this but I really don't care. If you are at all familiar with Duffy, you might know he has friends. Shellie May is his girlfriend, and then there's Gelatoni the cat, Stella Lou the bunny, Cookie the dog, and Olu' the turtle. Another costuming friend of mine is making little dresses and suits for all of them, and they're going to be our wedding party. They're going to sit in the first row of chairs. We also added in the two stuffed animals we've both had since we were children. The unofficial best man will have Jay's with the rings, and mine will be sitting with Shellie May. I'm carrying Duffy down in the aisle instead of a bouquet. DCL has agreed to do floral decor instead.

Ridiculous? Maybe. Completely us? Absolutely.
 


So cool! I love that you all are making it your own. We're planning a Disney Magic wedding Nov. 2020. I think we're going with the standard elements but I love, love what you're doing.
 
So the bridesbears and groomsbears (technically it's two bears, a dog, a cat, a bunny, and a turtle, but that's just a mouthful) have officially arrived to my friend out in California. She's making red dresses for the girls and little gray suits for the boys with red bow ties. There's also a Braveheart Lion (that's a Carebear) who is getting a suit, and a baby Mickey Mouse that I haven't decided if he's getting a suit or just a bowtie because he's so much smaller than everyone else. Jay will be wearing a blue suit with a red tie, or at least that's the plan. We haven't actually gone shopping yet. We're planning on doing that in the fall and then doing our actual purchases on Black Friday.

I told my mom and Jay the only thing I want for my birthday next month is a Cricut, which is that thing you use to cut vinyl, paper, and more into custom shapes. I want to use it to make stuff for welcome bags.:
  • Drawstring backpack
  • Lanyard
  • Reusable cup with reusable straw, probably 16 oz if I can't find a better deal on 32 oz ones
  • Door magnets with their names
  • Sunscreen
  • Chapstick
I feel like tote bags are prettier, but drawstring bags are more useful. I have so many tote bags I never use.

I'm also having a slight conundrum. With the wedding, a dinner at Palo is included for the couple. I had originally thought we would do that on the last night because we might be ready for some space. But it's also only a three night cruise, and we will never have this group of people together again. So now I'm trying to figure out when we could go to Palo. What I've read about other cruise couples doing is going to Palo at 6 and then joining the group dinner at 8. But that would involve us missing seeing one show, and we were really looking forward to the shows since its our first cruise. Any suggestions?
 
Well thanks to feedback from the DCL forum, and my wedding planner, we're doing Palo at 7:30 the last night, and then going late to dinner, so that's a relief. We've had some wedding drama. I wound up basically kicking one of our friends out of the wedding, I'm the one who did his room booking with my brother and some other friends, so I cancelled it, refunded his money, and put another friend in his spot. I had darn good reasons.

Also, in trying to talk to my brother about this issue, discovered he thought the weding was in September next year, not March.

"Well, you have over a year to make up your mind."

"I don't have a year. Why do you keep saying a year?"

"September is over a year away."

"The wedding is in March."

"WHAT?"

Thankfully his cruise was booked correctly because I did that myself, and I assisted his supervisor with a WDW trip back in April so I'm pretty sure the time off snafu will get fixed. (Not a travel agent, just really good at WDW and I live in Orlando.) Now he's just mad at me he has a lot less time than he thought to practice our dance. We're not doing a father/daughter or mother/son dance, we're going to have me and my brother do something ridiculous and choregraphed and then DF will join in.
 


Oh no, drama is not good! Although I think every wedding has something during the planning. Don't let the situation with the friend get to you!

How did you brother get the date so wrong??
Supposedly, since he works in a hospital that does all their dates European style, 6/9 would be September 6th. He saw the big 6 and the big 9 and completely missed the word March.

My response: WHY WOULD I GET MARRIED IN HURRICANE SEASON?
 
I haven't read anything yet but I am so here for this! We are planning on a February 2022 DCL wedding and I would love to live vicariously through you lol

Edit (I read)
OMG I LOVE THE STUFFED DUFFY GROUP!!! I love stuffed animals, perhaps I will bring some ...
Have you been to Tokyo Disney? Lots of Duffy & Friends there.
I am so jealous (but super excited for you) about the custom dress, that is amazing! I might have to make my fiancé 's tux since he wants fancy embroidery on it (which would be more than my dress budget). Asking for an embroidery machine this December!
Oh, I just got a Cricut for my birthday, I haven't used it but I also plan to use for wedding things (mostly invites). I really hope you can get one!
 
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I was trying to figure out a guest book and my best friend said, "Oh, I just assumed you were doing a life preserver."

I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT.

I haven't read anything yet but I am so here for this! We are planning on a February 2022 DCL wedding and I would love to live vicariously through you lol

Edit (I read)
OMG I LOVE THE STUFFED DUFFY GROUP!!! I love stuffed animals, perhaps I will bring some ...
Have you been to Tokyo Disney? Lots of Duffy & Friends there.
I am so jealous (but super excited for you) about the custom dress, that is amazing! I might have to make my fiancé 's tux since he wants fancy embroidery on it (which would be more than my dress budget). Asking for an embroidery machine this December!
Oh, I just got a Cricut for my birthday, I haven't used it but I also plan to use for wedding things (mostly invites). I really hope you can get one!
Welcome aboard! I will do my best to share everything here, and I'm planning on doing full coverage on my blog (Twenty Something in Orlando) AFTER the event. (Over 50% of our very small guest list reads my blog so I don't want to spoil things in the meantime.)

I have not been to Tokyo yet. It's what I am setting my sights on as soon as I get done paying for this wedding. I have a Tokyo friend though who has graciously sent me a couple of care packages over the years.

An embroidered tux sounds awesome!! I am very crafty but once you introduce needles and thread, I'm no good at it.

My birthday was two days ago and I told mom to wait until Black Friday for the Cricut. There's no real rush and I KNOW it'll go on sale.
 
Wow! This sounds awesome. I have a friend planning on getting married in September 2020 on one of the cruise line ships (not sure which DCL one) and the first thing I asked was, did you contact Disney Fairytale Weddings?! I got a big fat "No" out of that question....I'm like, did you look at how many (few) rooms there are left?!
 
So it's been a minute. Here's where things stand:
  • Our cruise is paid in full.
  • My parents cruise is paid in full.
  • We booked Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue the night before the cruise for us and thirteen guests. Some of our guests weren't sure when their flights would be/if they could make it. My brother also hates Hoop cuz he's weird. We're also going to stay at Fort Wilderness in a cabin that night because too many people thought my house could be a hotel.
  • We're having a co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party in mid-November because we got a crazy good deal on day resort packages at Discovery Cove. There's eight of us going. If you're not familiar with Discovery Cove, it's an all inclusive day resort in Orlando, including all you can drink. :D 10/10 highly recommend.
  • DF finally met my friend Gary, who was the only person invited that he had never met before, and they got along just swimmingly. Our friends who were with us hit it off with him too, so yay!
  • I am definitely getting that Cricut come Black Friday and I have so many plans for it.
  • We booked Beach Club for a two night mini-honeymoon after the cruise. Doing the park photos is going to be way easier if we're staying at a Disney hotel and I've wanted to stay at Beach Club forever.
  • We're also now doing two days of in-park photos. It was a stupid amount of money (roughly $2,500) for the MK park photos, but only a slightly stupider amount ($2,800) for MK and DAK. So why not?
  • I went with my friend to pick out dress fabric yesterday so that's super exciting. She got almost all of it. They didn't have enough of one kind, and we need seven continuous yards, and another kind is way cheaper on Amazon.
  • DF's mom made lanyards for the welcome bags I'm working on, so now everyone has cool, one of a kind, nautical Disney lanyards. She's also going to embroider the bags once I have time to sit down and make an embroidery file. I could do it with the cricut and iron it on, but she wants to help, and that's a lot of ironing for someone who hasn't used an iron since 2016. lol.
  • The groomsbear suits are officially patterned.
  • I mixed the music for the first dance and the processional since I wanted it to start part way into the song.
I think that's everything? RSVP's are due November 1st. Honestly I don't expect what we have to change, unless my dad's best friend can make it. I told him I'd give him until December 1st, because I'm just going to add him to my parents room. We were looking at trying to book two cabanas on Castaway Cay for everybody, but it's just not something I can realistically pay for.
 
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Wow, you got a lot done and things well on their way in being completed.
If you have time, I would LOVE to see all the stuff you do with your Cricut :)

my dad's best friend can make it. I told him I'd give him until December 1st, because I'm just going to add him to my parents room.

Just an FYI, sometimes you cannot add to a cabin (even if the cabin can hold more people), it is better to take away than add. Something to do with having enough space for spaces on lifeboats for an emergency.
 
Well it's been about a month. Here's where things stand now.

  • RSVPs are officially in. I was right, we have 23 guests. Well. I say in, but basically if someone didn't respond I just assumed it was a no. We wound up canceling my parents room and rebooking them in another room with my dad's best friend to keep the cost down. I had to move them a deck, but they're in the same room type, and still in our muster station, which was what I cared about. I still need to call and add him to the Hoop reservation.
  • We got two cabins booked for Fort Wilderness the night before the cruise. I've never stayed at Fort Wilderness. I just hope they give us two that are next to each other.
  • I got my Cricut! Michaels was running a pre-Black Friday special so I jumped on it. I haven't had much time to play with it though.
  • I did the embroidery file and sent it to future MIL, but I haven't heard if it worked yet or not. I asked her to test it on some scrap fabric but I went ahead and ordered the bags.
  • My original plan was one bag per couple with two of everything and then the solo people would get their own bag, but the bags came in a group of 25 so everyone might get their own now.
  • I have also started on a quest to make glitter tumblers for everyone to use. My mom and I have been going to Michaels buying the cups one at a time so we can use 50% off coupons on each one. There is a slight chance I have bitten off more than I can chew on this project but I'll figure it out.
  • Now that we have all the reservations in, I can't wait to sit down and fill out the packet and turn it in. We're hoping to do that this week, but I honestly don't know if we'll have time. Our jobs like to give us opposite schedules.
  • Our co-ed bachelor/bachelorette day was yesterday. We did Discovery Cove and an Escape Room, and it was honestly the absolutely most perfect day.
  • I designed the first set of magnets for everyone's doors. I'm gonna do one more set, and then I need to figure out if the printer we have actually works before Black Friday.
  • We're taking our engagement photos next Thursday. Yeah, you're supposed to take them within a month or two of getting engaged, but like anything else for this has been traditional. We're gonna hit all four parks and do all the Disney walls. Thankfully I have some friends as crazy as I am and they agreed to tag along. I've got two different outfits, I just need to find him another shirt. I also need to figure out what I'm doing with my hair. Styling is not my strong suit.
  • I outlined the blog series I'm planning on this nonsense, and right now I have at least 18 different articles... oh boy.
  • I shut down the Target wedding registry and moved everything over to Amazon so now we only have Amazon and Zola.
  • We got DF's suit. I wanted to go try things on and then wait for Black Friday, and no, we had to buy something at the first place we went to. It does look good.
  • Hong Kong announced a new Duffy friend, but not any details yet, and I'm just really hoping it gets released after the wedding.
That might be it? I'm still really worn out from yesterday, but in a good way.

Edit: Forgot one. We're looking at renting a bus to drive everyone to the port, but I gotta figure out where we can leave cars for the three nights. I think we should have 7-9 cars if anyone has any ideas.
 
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