Topic: Wedding on St John (US Virgin Islands) while onboard NCL S/S Norway Cruise 3/16-3/23 (2003)

I am going to break this review into several sections, focusing on the aspect of marrying while in port during a cruise. This will be a lengthy review in hopes of helping other future Brides live their dream weddings. This review represents only my own personal experiences and opinions.

Sections:

Background of Bride and Groom
Reasons for selecting St. John, US Virgin Islands
Reasons for choosing the cruise ship S/S Norway
Factors in contracting with wedding coordinator (Ceremonies of St. John)
Legalities handled prior to arrival
The wedding day:
From ship to St. John
Clearing immigration
Transportation from Cruz Bay to wedding location (Hawksnest Beach)
The wedding itself:
Choosing the site on the beach
Overall wedding
Photographer (Sonya Melescu)
Videographer (YouMayNow.com)
Minister (Reverend Emmanuel Jaggernauth)
Reception:
Choosing the reception catamaran
Wedding cake
After the wedding:
Tour in St. Thomas (Godfrey Renal)
Returning to Ship
About NCL S/S Norway Staff the week of our wedding
Overall comments

Review:

Background of Bride and Groom:

Curt and Mandy first cruised the NCL Sky (7-night Western Caribbean) in December 2000 and fell in love with cruising. At the time, Curt was 28 and Mandy was 26. While on a cruise in December 2001 on Celebrity Galaxy (7-night Southern Caribbean out of San Juan), we visited St. Thomas for a port of call. Although rainy that day, we still visited Magen’s Bay and enjoyed a desolate beach when the sun peeked through the clouds (rain kept other guests away!!). While in Barbados, another port of call on that same cruise, we looked at engagement rings, which Curt purchased while I did other shopping that morning. Following the cruise, we spent three nights on St. Croix. Ironically, the reason we chose St. Croix was because of a reduced AAdvantage mileage offer that we tied into our cruise travels. We always knew we would marry one another, and both assumed it would take place on a beach while on a cruise. After Curt proposed in March 2002, we began to brainstorm ideas for our wedding.
This wedding cruise took a total of 19 people including the Bride and Groom. Of the nineteen, eleven were first-time cruisers, and most of those had never left the mainland US before. Ages in our group ranged from 26-69. I won many full-fare passes on Southwest Airlines at the Luv Classic fundraisers that support the Ronald McDonald House ($10 raffle tickets). Southwest hosts this fundraiser twice a year (May-Phoenix and October-Dallas) and I have saved the passes I have won from the last three fundraisers. (I was VERY lucky!!) We used these passes to get all family members and friends to Fort Lauderdale, so the out-of-pocket expense to our guests was the cruise fare and one night hotel in Miami. Guests flew from Houston, Kansas City, Boston area, and Dallas.

Reasons for selecting St. John, US Virgin Islands:

We researched various ports of call where we could easily marry barefoot on the beach but not be required to spend too many hours on the land ahead of time. The two easiest places in the Caribbean we found were the US Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. After researching how many cruises miss Grand Cayman as a port of call, we settled on the US Virgin Islands. Knowing we would be required to go to the courthouse the day of the wedding, we originally focused our research on St. Thomas. However, these pictures of St. John kept popping up on various wedding coordinator webpages we viewed. This St. John placed looked pretty neat…

Reasons for choosing the cruise ship S/S Norway:

Three main reasons we chose Norwegian Cruise Line’s S/S Norway: (1) Affordability during Spring Break (I am a teacher); (2) S/S Norway was the only cruise ship sailing from Florida during my Spring Break where we could go directly from the ship to St. John and allow us to have an early morning wedding (we did not have to go to the courthouse – see section below); (3) We wanted to learn of the S/S Norway’s history while she was still around.
Having cruised on both NCL and Celebrity, we had a more enjoyable time on NCL Sky. We thought that being Latitudes members may help secure better rates, perks, etc. I placed an ad on cruisemates.com to obtain quotes from various travel agents, and chose Dauna with WayToGoTravel. At the time, she had the best rate available for the initial seven cabins we were booking. Unfortunately, after final payment was due 60 days prior to sail date, rates plummeted. NCL’s policy is to not adjust rates after that point, so prices for suites were going for well under $500 per person when we paid about $700 per person. Dauna tried to negotiate upgrades with NCL, but was unsuccessful. The ship sailed full.

Factors in contracting with wedding coordinator: (Ceremonies of St. John – Stacy Mulcare)
www.usviwedding.com

I made a spreadsheet of various wedding coordinators in the US Virgin Islands. On the left hand column, I listed the amenities we wanted in our wedding. Across the top, I listed various wedding coordinators with their packages (and what each package included – they are all different). I used the analogy one would use when purchasing a new car: you don’t want the bottom-of-the-line but you might not necessarily need all the bells-and-whistles either. I did not choose the cheapest nor the most expensive. Also, I utilized google.com to research various aspects of a wedding as well as read other people’s input. I even emailed people that may have used Ceremonies of St. John and had posted their email address on websites. The positive feedback I received about Ceremonies of St. John secured our decision.
Originally, I thought I could do this myself and save the 18% wedding coordinator mark-up, but as I began asking questions to various people in the area, I sometimes could not get immediate feedback. (Like waiting over a month). I assumed that it would be well worth my money to utilize a wedding coordinator, especially due to the “what-ifs” that can happen while cruising. What if the cruise ship ran late that morning, what if the cruise ship completely skipped port, what if… If anything happened the day of the wedding, I wanted to be able to make one phone call and let someone else handle the rest. It certainly gave me peace of mind.
Also, Stacy’s communication was always prompt within a business day or two. She is very professional.
Point to note: We chose not to go with the cruise line’s wedding coordinator company due to price, limited amenities, incorrect legal information, and due to the fact we wanted someone familiar with the area firsthand. I did speak with them in June 2002.

Legalities handled prior to arrival:

To marry in the US Virgin Islands, the Bride and Groom are required to type an application and mail the $50 certified check to the courthouse. It must be received at least eight business days prior to your wedding date. On your wedding day (or earlier) you must appear at the courthouse to be sworn in.
I had many AAdvantage miles after I left my former job as a project manager at Sprint, so Curt and I decided to take a little trip to St. John over Thanksgiving 2002. We spent five nights on St. John at Concordia Ecotents (www.maho.org) and also had engagement photos taken while there (coordinated by Stacy). This gave us an opportunity to meet Stacy firsthand and sign our contract, pick out the perfect wedding beach on St. John, and take care of legalities ahead of time at the courthouse in Charlotte Amalie. We contracted with Stacy $50 to pick up the marriage license within the preceding three months of the wedding (time limitation by USVI law). At this point, we were almost four months away from the wedding, so we could only be sworn in but not ‘issue’ the license yet. (The NCL wedding coordinator company told me this was NOT possible.) By making our trip to the courthouse in St. Thomas during November, we figured that saved us a lot of time of doing it the day of the wedding. Also, it allowed us to have a 9:00 AM wedding on St. John --- long before the hundreds of cruise passengers on other ships could make it to St. John.
This decision paid off for us. On our wedding day, March 20, there were a total of five ships in port at St. Thomas. Four ships were at St. Thomas and our ship was in the bay. We took the ferry from ship to St. John and cleared immigration early. I can honestly say that passengers on the Norway were on St. John probably before the passengers on the other cruise ships even made it to Red Hook (St. Thomas) to take the ferry over. Do I even have to mention how great it is to have spectacular pictures with nobody in the background on the beach or swimming??? Had we not taken care of the courthouse appearance ahead of time, we would have been required to go to St. Thomas first, wait at the courthouse, then travel to St. John. Our courthouse time in November took about one hour, and there were only two couples ahead of us. I cannot imagine how long it would take on a busy morning.

The wedding day:

From ship to St. John:
https://www.vinow.com/general_usvi/interisland_ferry/

The concierge on S/S Norway, Alex Forbes, is phenomenal. (I’ll be repeating that many times.) After arriving onboard March 16 in Miami, I left Alex a message that I had a total of 19 who needed to make sure we were on the very first ferry from ship to St. John. At first, Alex was scared that I didn’t know I had to do the courthouse part, but after letting him know that was already taken care of, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Alex secured our $8 ferry tickets, arranged for our group to meet in a separate part of the ship in a nice waiting area, escorted us to the awaiting ferry, and had those NCL Dive Crew staff on board know to let the ‘wedding party’ off first.
NCL contracts with a USVI ferry company to take passengers directly from ship to St. John. The return trip is a normal scheduled ferry from Cruz Bay (St. John) to Charlotte Amalie. Not bad for $8 roundtrip when the normal rate on the internet or at the ticket window is $14. Once back in Charlotte Amalie, the Norway passengers ride the regular tender (Little Norway) back to the ship in the bay. We knew we would only be using the one-way part of the ticket, but for $8 it was fine. These USVI ferries have an indoor, air-conditioned area. I did not have to worry about my hair getting blown to pieces. My Maid of Honor and I carried our dresses, as we knew Stacy would have a place for us to change. We were at the ferry dock on St. John by 7:30AM.

Clearing immigration:

After 9/11, new laws have gone into effect. Because we were in St. Martin the day before and were re-entering a US Territory, the entire ship had to clear immigration. For passengers going to St. John, names were turned in on a passenger manifest and these passengers clear immigration on St. John. This is a different dock from the dock that the ferries going back and forth from Red Hook use – just a short walk away. We cleared immigration very quickly, and were waiting for our cab by 7:45AM. Unfortunately, the private cab was contracted for 8:30. I called Stacy at 8:00 to let her know we were early, and she was on her way already. She met us by 8:15. (For the passengers going to St. Thomas, immigration came on board to clear them before they could board the tender to St. Thomas. They apparently made it to St. Thomas around 10:00 or so.)

Transportation from Cruz Bay to wedding location (Hawksnest Beach):

We wanted our guests to have as little out-of-pocket expense as possible. Alex was instrumental in back-charging our $8 tickets to Curt and I (our onboard cruise account). We had rolled the private taxi transportation into our wedding contract with Stacy– same posted rates as normal plus tip – and plus the wedding coordinator 18%. Stacy secured a taxi to take 17 to Hawksnest, and the Maid of Honor and I rode with Stacy in her air-conditioned Jeep Cherokee. (I’ve quoted grand total final cost at end of this post)
Having visited St. John before, I knew the drive well going from Cruz Bay to the north shore. There are two really good lookout areas on the side of the road, so I made sure to mention that to the driver. I knew that the group would NOT be returning to Cruz Bay, so this would be their only opportunity for photos. (We had a surprise reception planned on a catamaran that would pick us up at the beach and drop us off in Red Hook, St. Thomas). The driver did pull over at the two stops – one overlooks Cruz Bay and the other overlooks the Caneel Resort area. Hawksnest is the very next beach. (There is another spectacular overlook just past Hawksnest that overlooks Trunk Bay, but we did not have the group go that far.)
Anita (my Maid of Honor) and I rode with Stacy. It was only 8:15 in the morning, but THANK GOODNESS for air conditioning!! The place Stacy secured for us to changes clothes was at the restroom of Mongoose Junction shopping area. Although the stores were not open, she knew who to ask for the key to the restrooms. Anita and I merely had to slip into our dresses, as our hair and makeup were already done. (This would not be a place you would want to do hair/make-up.)
We arrived at the beach early, so Anita and I enjoyed the AC. We could see family/friends wandering along the beach.

The wedding itself:

Choosing the site on the beach:

Our photographer and videographer were on the 8:00 ferry from Red Hook, and our minister was picking them up in Cruz Bay. There were only two other people on the beach when we arrived, and Stacy would ‘encourage’ new beach visitors to go to another site on the beach instead of smack-dab in the middle of our wedding. We waited for Sonya to arrive to choose the exact location, as she would know best for photography lighting. The site on the beach was selected, Stacy scattered rose petals to form an aisle on the beach, and continued to encourage other beach guests not to crash our wedding (or leave footprints in the sand going through the wedding site). Because Stacy lives on St. John full-time, she could pretty much tell who was a visitor and who was a resident. I appreciated her encouraging people to not set their beach chairs in the middle of the wedding. (Of course later when we were doing pictures, this one couple had decided to have front row seats of our wedding. Oh well – they are not in any of the pictures, but with my back towards the water with me looking towards the trees lining the beach, this couple was right there for me to smile at. I guess they had never seen a wedding before and wanted a close-up.)
Point to note: Although Trunk Bay is definitely gorgeous, ALL of the cruise ship passengers on our ferry from the Norway who were headed to the beach were going to Trunk Bay. I kept telling them all how beautiful it was all week long. I certainly didn’t want to share my wedding with 500 of my closest strangers. Curt and I chose Hawksnest because of low crowds, proximity to Cruz Bay, and beauty.

Overall wedding:

Beautiful. I cannot describe it, and my words would never do it justice (hey – I was a math major in college as writing is ‘not my thing’). Curt had never seen me cry before, but when the minister began speaking and I was listening to the waves gently rolling in, the tears just started. Of course I forgot to use the waterproof mascara. Those darn tears would not stop. Curt’s lip started quivering. The beauty of the location, having our family and close friends with us, living our dream wedding – it all hit us at once. I was so thankful when the minister finally had us join hands – I about squeezed poor Curt’s hands in two. Our family continued to take pictures throughout the ceremony, so we have various pictures from many angles. The most touching part to me was when Curt reached up to wipe a tear from my right cheek during the ceremony. Of course nobody capture that as a snapshot, but it’s on the video.

Photographer
(Sonya Melescu http://www.virginislandsphoto.com/):

Sonya was terrific. I actually waited to write this review until after I received her photos and the video (they came Friday 4/4). Sonya had ‘front row’ for the wedding so that her pictures would be unobstructed. They turned out beautiful. She was really great to work with. After comparing snapshots our guests took to Sonya’s snapshots during the ceremony, I can see why lighting and angles are so important. The only negative to this is that it was sunny that morning. In many of the ceremony snapshots (about ten), our eyes are squinted shut or in a blink. However, when taking the photos afterwards, she really worked with us on relaxing our face muscles. “Relax, on two smile, on three open eyes.” Those pictures turned out great. Of course by then I was sweating, even with a backless, sleeveless wedding dress. Thank goodness I was barefooted and not in hose and heels!!! Oh well – it’s outdoors and the Virgin Islands – the sun is going to come out every once in a while!! We do have negative ownership of our wedding photos.
Point to note: We did not use Sonya for our wedding photos strictly due to price. Stacy told us she uses three photographers, and she was able to get one person down almost to our price range (Robert Lucas). His photos were very good – we purchased the same set we did for the wedding – 36 4x6 prints placed in an album with ownership of the negatives. His charge: $250 (plus the 18%). We had those taken Thanksgiving week at 8:45 in the morning on the grounds of the Westin Resort. That allowed us to have many shots on grass, on beach, near beautiful pool area, in gazebo, etc. A great variety.

Videographer ( http://www.YouMayNow.com):

Forgive me, but I cannot remember our videographer’s name. Apparently he is the owner of the video company. He was great! He interviewed all of our guests (I didn’t realize that), videotaped the wedding, and did some great shots afterwards. We just received the edited version April 4 that had music, opening/closing captions, and a lot of great characteristics. I had no clue who the videographer would be, so I am quite pleased now. After looking at his website (just learned of it when I received the video), I see many other amenities I would have been interested in had I known this is who we were using or that these were options. They were not listed on the Ceremonies of St. John website. However, we had already exceeded our wedding budget, so it is probably a good thing I did not see this website prior to the wedding. This cost was $350, and worth every penny. We took the video over to some friends’ house right after viewing it and they were very impressed as well.
Point to note: I may sound like an idiot not knowing all the details before the wedding, but the contract is written in a way that does not specify what vendor Stacy is using for each piece.
Ex: “VIDEO: $350.00 One hour of professional videography shot at Hawksnest Beach from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. Tape edited with couple’s name, date, location and soundtrack, delivered in a complimentary gift box. CEREMONIES OF ST. JOHN agrees to ship the video to the Bridal couple’s home address.”
You are simply trusting her that you are getting your money’s worth. In November when I asked which photographer she uses, she told me that she does not reveal her photographers until after the contract is signed. (That could very well be the only negative I have to say in regards to wedding coordinator, but then again, I am such a ‘planner’ person myself that I usually like to know everything.) After we signed the contract, we learned that Sonya was booked for us although not specified in the contract. I had already seen Sonya’s website in my previous google.com searches, so I was excited.

Minister ( Reverend Emmanuel Jaggernauth http://www.usviwedding.com/vows.htm ):

We really enjoyed this minister and he spoke very clearly and precisely. If I understand correctly, he is the only fully ordained minister on St. John (basically meaning he really went through Theological school and did not obtain his degree by mail-order of off the internet). Reverend Jaggernauth is the minister of Cruz Bay Baptist church. We chose the Island vows because we wanted something traditional but with an island twist. It was not until about a week after the wedding that I realized we did not have a prayer or scripture reading in the wedding! I guess I should have specified that we wanted Island vows with some sort of religion in them (we are both Christians). There were three sets of vows we could choose from. However, I did carry Curt’s mother’s white Bible down the aisle that she carried 33 years ago down the aisle, so I am really glad for that.

Flowers http://www.eastendflowershop.net/ :

We only ordered a bridal bouquet and boutonnière for the Groom. Both were fresh. The cost of a fresh bouquet for Maid of Honor or corsages for the mothers/grandmother were more expensive than I was willing to pay. When I later mentioned how much, they all agreed that it was best I had not spent the money. Our wedding cake was topped with fresh flowers (cost $40 extra) and those matched our wedding flowers. It was fun pulling each stem out of the cake before cutting the cake. In fact, we saved those flowers from the cake and somehow managed to get them back home to Dallas. About ten days after the wedding, we took those roses we saved from the cake, removed the rose petals, and took a nice bath in our jacuzzi garden tub. (Isn’t marriage about new experiences??) We were very pleased with the flowers.

Reception:

Choosing the reception catamaran:
http://www.adventurervi.com/

While visiting St. John in November, we had already researched and booked a catamaran for our private reception. However, we told white lies to our families and friends – we told them that the reception would be wedding cake on the beach. Okay, so it was wedding cake onboard a chartered catamaran while sailing the waters of the US Virgin Islands. We booked the 40-foot Calypso catamaran for the reception. We had to guarantee 15 guests for this and it would accommodate up to 25. The crew of three were great. It had an open bar, champagne, hors devours, shaded seating, sunning area, etc. During our November trip, we sailed on the sister catamaran, Adventurer, which was 53-feet and held more guests. Unfortunately, you had to guarantee 25 to book Adventurer, but the Calypso was fine.
To get from wedding beach to catamaran, we were transported by hard-bottom dinghy (details on website). It could carry six passengers at once easily, so we made three trips. It was so neat seeing the Calypso come into the bay where only a few of us knew what was going on. I told my grandmother that we had to walk to the other end of the beach near the rocks to catch the taxi. She later told she had never been on a taxi like that!
The first dinghy took the Bride, Groom, and both sets of parents. The first thing Curt and I did was go get naked underneath. (Just kidding). We changed out of wedding attire into swimsuits.
We sailed east towards Trunk, Cinnamon, and Maho bays, then circled back to head towards Red Hook. We sailed up through the cays off of St. John, and ended up at Red Hook dock at 11:30ish. For a 90-minute charter, this cost $50 per person plus the boat company’s 20% service charge (then tack on wedding coordinator’s 18%). For 3-hours, the cost would have only been $65 + 20% + 18%, but we didn’t want to keep the family on the catamaran that long since we were on a cruise all week anyway.
During the sail, we had the Best Man do a champagne toast, we cut the cake and fed each other, listened to great Caribbean music on the CD player, and enjoyed the views. The wind was not strong that day, so we mainly used motor the entire time. Honestly, where else can you attend a wedding reception wearing swimsuits in the most gorgeous part of the world?
The crew onboard took care of us – serving drinks, sharing tidbits about what we were seeing, letting us enjoy the moment.

Wedding cake:

I must say this was delicious. The wedding cake was made of genoise, iced in butter cream and topped with fresh flowers for up to fourteen guests (we saved money by cutting smaller slices, and we also knew we could not take it back to the US). The wedding cake was topped with fresh flowers matching the bridal bouquet and was displayed / served on the catamaran. I’m not sure, but I think Stacy’s husband may have been the caterer (judging by last name of this chef plus the fact that it is linked to only Stacy’s website for weddings). http://www.stjohnchef.com/
Our guests had nothing but compliments on how delicious the cake was. Cost of wedding cake including flowers on top: $155 (+ 18%)
Link from USVI Wedding website: http://www.usviwedding.com/catering.htm

After the wedding:

Tour in St. Thomas (Godfrey Renal of http://www.godfreytoursvi.com/):

After departing the catamaran Calypso in Red Hook at the dock at 11:30ish, I had prearranged Godfrey Renal for a three-hour tour of St. Thomas. We all needed to be back in Charlotte Amalie for the last 3:30 tender back to the Norway, and taxi fare alone would have cost about $8 per person. For $20 per person, Godfrey would do the tour from Red Hook ending up in Charlotte Amalie at the point the tender meets. Of our group of 19, twelve of us did this tour. It was well worth it. We spent an hour snorkeling at Sapphire Beach resort http://www.sapphirebeachresort.com followed by a great tour of St. Thomas. Curt and I had visited St. Thomas twice before, but we learned a lot on this tour and saw places we had not seen before. Even tried the banana daiquiri at Mountain Top! For details about this tour, refer to Godfrey’s website. You can also read the Cruise Critic message board for St. Thomas and see great reviews of his tours. I highly recommend Godfrey. It was GREAT meeting him in Red Hook with a sign denoting my new last name!!

Returning to Ship:

Tender back to S/S Norway was no problem, but pretty hot by 3:00. However, while waiting for the tender to fill up, the Kon Tiki party boat was returning to dock. My new husband got to see another woman’s bare chest on our wedding day, as one of the girls on the Kon Tiki boat gladly lifted her top to share with those of us on the tender (the Norway tenders hold up to 450 passengers). Being Spring Break, with five ships in port and a legal drinking age of 18, you can only imagine the rum punch flowing on Kon Tiki…

About NCL S/S Norway Staff the week of our wedding:

I honestly cannot speak highly enough of the NCL S/S Norway staff on board. They definitely exceeded our expectations. (Yes, the customer service department you deal with prior to getting to Miami needs a lot of help, but the staff on board was terrific.) Knowing we were getting married on Thursday of the cruise, the staff really took care of us. I just want to name a few who made our wedding week memorable:
Alex – concierge (we were in a suite, and he really took care of us, including inviting us to a VIP reception in the Captain’s quarters one night)
Hailey-Jo – spa manager (gave us a 7-day spa pass for two through Alex, and was always so nice when we visited; of course we booked several treatments; the Roman Spa is beautiful)
Tarina – reflexologist (gave Curt a great reflexology massage and let me sit in so she could show me certain things; she also taught the reflexology class onboard that week which was good)
Colleen – hairdresser (without me even having to ask, I just mentioned I was getting married on Thursday but taking the 6:15AM ferry – and she immediately offered to do my hair at 5:00AM although the salon did not open until 10:00)
Kathleen – did a spa scrub treatment for me, and made sure I invited Curt to my hydrotherapy bath the day after our wedding – very nice of her
Maitre D’ – I do not remember his name, but he switched our two dining tables in Leeward to the next table over… the Captain’s table #122. It accommodated 15 of us at one table (versus our original two), and the other four people in our group ate at the next table over, which was a table for eight. The Maitre D’ checked on us each night.
Our only negative on board: the suite next to my parents. Let me just say '21-year-old female Spring Breaker with no respect for other people'. My parents had little sleep the first three nights even with Security being called multiple times (the ship was full so nobody could be moved). After I mentioned this to Alex, my parents had sleep the remainder of the cruise. Security patrolled that section of the Sky deck more closely. (Is 2:00 AM unreasonable to ask your neighbors not to bang on the walls or yell so loud it wakes the people with hearing problems up next door?? - Yes, we know my Dad is 'old' - she told him several times he should never be on this ship since he is over 50 and it is her Spring Break.)
We had five AE suites on the Sky deck with floor-to-ceiling windows and four CC oceanview cabins on the Viking deck midship (the former first class cabins from the S/S France). Nobody had any complaints of our cruise except regarding the 21-year-old child next to my parents. All 19 in our group were very satisfied with the Norway and the overall cruise.

Overall thoughts:

We would highly recommend getting married in port while on a cruise, particularly on St. Thomas or St. John (remember the courthouse though). I have mentioned any negatives I had, no matter how minor they were.
Our total costs of wedding/reception/engagement photos package: $2997.00
Wedding coordinator 18%: $540.00
Total contracted cost: $3537.00 (plus the $50 for marriage license and $152 for ferry tickets purchased through the cruise to get us all to St. John)
I knew someone would ask how much a wedding cost, so I just bared all in this review. Hopefully it helps someone. We could have easily spent that amount having a wedding in Dallas, but we wanted something unique and that is more our personal style. We feel that our wedding/reception/photos were worth every penny, and would highly recommend the services provided by anyone listed in this review. (Hey – I’m a teacher – that’s a lot of money to me!)

I have posted photos to cruisemates.com in the Photo Gallery.
http://www.cruisemates.com/MBindex/PGindex.cfm
The gallery is titled “Norway Wedding Cruise 3/16” with the author “Mandy”. As I update the gallery, it moves around on the list, so you may have to look through the list to find mine.

Good luck with any future wedding plans!

Oh - people have suggested we return to St John each year on our anniversary (and invite them, too). If we could find a permanent way to move there, we would!!! I honestly believe there is not a prettier place in the world - especially with such nice people! 🙂