Cruise lines offer all manner of packages and celebrations to couples wanting to get married, celebrate an anniversary, renew their vows or even propose.
Holding your wedding on a ship can certainly take away a lot of the hassle as most cruise lines fall over themselves to be helpful. It’s important, though, to understand what you can and can’t do as that romantic notion from the movies of the Captain marrying you at sea can only take place on some of the ships of Princess Cruises and P&O Cruises because of where the ships themselves are registered.
On other cruise lines, you can bring your own registrar on board while the ship is in port to conduct the civil ceremony, or hold the ceremony in a nearby beauty spot and simply enjoy your honeymoon on the ship.
Most of the big American cruise lines now offer this service in conjunction with The Wedding Experience, a specialist wedding company, among them Royal Caribbean Cruise, Celebrity Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Windstar Cruises and Holland America (in Europe), as well as select ports for Carnival Cruise Line.
So which are the best cruise lines on which to celebrate the most important day of your life?
P&O Cruises
P&O Cruises offers weddings on board Arcadia, Oceana and Artemis (and soon, Ventura) conducted by the captain, and weddings in port on Aurora. The Weddings at Sea package starts from £675, with £225 for licence fees, and includes the venue, ceremony conducted by the ship’s captain, VIP treatment including priority boarding, floral arrangements for the ceremony, wedding music, wedding certificate, champagne, the services of the on-board wedding coordinator, invitations and thank-you notes.
Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises
The Captain can’t conduct the ceremony at sea on Royal Caribbean ships but the company makes up for this with a huge range of creative ideas for weddings ashore or in port, including Explorer Weddings, where couples can tie the knot on an Alaskan glacier or in a hot-air balloon, or while surfing on the FlowRider on Liberty of the Seas or Freedom of the Seas, or even scuba diving if they’re so inclined.
Sister company Celebrity Cruises offers weddings in port as well as two vow-renewal packages. The True Love Knot Renewal package, as an example, includes a ceremony officiated by the ship's captain; commemorative vow renewal certificate signed by the captain; recorded ceremony music; flowers, photographs; a bottle of champagne; two engraved champagne flutes; cake for two, and breakfast in bed.
Princess Cruises
As the original setting for the popular series, The Love Boat, it’s only fitting that Princess Cruises has gone wild for romance. On Crown Princess and Emerald Princess, couples can take a ‘Certified Romantic’ course that offers practical tips from experts on keeping the spark alive.
There’s a Romance-By-Room-Service menu that includes a special presentation of champagne and chocolate, scattered fresh rose petals and candlelight, all set to a background of romantic music. Dinner is served on your private balcony.
Princess even has an ‘Engagement Under the Stars’ programme for passengers who want to pop the question with a surprise video-taped proposal on the ship's 300-square-foot Movies Under the Stars screen on deck. For $695, you get an exclusive DVD of the proposal, champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries, a portrait, breakfast in bed, romantic dinner for two, a couples’ massage and a $100 credit against your future wedding at sea package. Assuming the answer is ‘yes’, of course!
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