Get me to the Church on time! A wedding at Sea?

Bet you think I'm going mad again, well you are probably right! I have just been discussing costs with a friend who is getting married soon and we started talking about getting married at Sea.

So read on for my thoughts.


A lot of the cruise lines have different wedding packages on offer, follow this link to find a brief summary of these. But what are the different wedding options available?

On some cruise lines you can get married:-

1. by the Captain at Sea
2. on ship on the day of departure, usually in a US port
3. in one of the ports of call during the cruise
4. renew your vows
5. or just have a Symbolic ceremony having get married before on land.

The list is not exhaustive, but give a flavour of the options available. In all cases you will also have to get the appropriate licences to be married in your chosen location, but the cruise lines usually have a weddings department to help you out there. But are there any other pitfalls?

Well, there are only a limited number of wedding ceremonies available on each sailing, and although you know when you want to get married your choice of line and venue, this might not be available with the cruise line.  And you may find that those popular times for weddings, like close to holiday seasons, have an additional cost from the cruise line.

With all the legal niceties there are, only a few lines are able to offer ceremonies at sea, although things are changing here as a recent law change in the Bahamas means that from 2013 Royal Caribbean will now be added to that list.

If you are getting married on the day of departure you just need to make sure that you are in the destination in sufficient time as it is usually an early start, but in most cases using this option means that your guests do not have to travel on the cruise (your honeymoon) with you!

Now the one that worries me is in a port of call during the cruise, might be really idyllic to get married on a Caribbean beach but what happens if the ship can't dock because of the weather, especially as you may have paid several hundreds of dollars to your licences, which will be no good on the next island!

Of course there are the logistics of the process, you need to check availability of a wedding spot on ship, cabin availability and  like everything in the world you can 'upgrade', add more flowers, more pictures, champagne breakfasts and the wedding breakfast on top of that. So the costs could also add up quiet significantly, so watching the budget is a necessity.

According to a search of the web the average cost of a wedding in 2013 is going to be about £16,500. So would getting married on a ship make this come down? Well, you will probably have less guests going and you might be able to get them to pay for their own cruise so you could bring it in cheaper than that if you wanted.

So, it must be worth a look at so give me a ring and I will try to point you in the right direction.