David & Syreeta's Cruise Wedding on the Magic

[Syreeta]

I think it's kind of cool how folks post their journals and plans for their Disney Fairytale Weddings. So here is our story.

 

[Syreeta]

This is my honey and I. We met in 7th grade in Upstate NY by having lockers located next to each other. He had a gum collection in his locker and I thought that was weird. So I asked him about it. That begun our relationship as friends. Fast-forward the summer before our senior year in high school. David kept popping up in all my circles. At work, here he is ordering a sub, walking home from shopping, he'd offer me a ride home and at the start of the school year there he was waiting to drive me to school everyday. Well I started to feel like this guy was staking me! He now admits it was a healthy stalking. Finally this shy guy got up the nerve to tell his friend to ask me out. I rejected that offer and demanded he ask me himself. As you can guess he finally did!

 

[Syreeta]

9 month later we were engaged- September 1998. I was in college so I promised my mom we'd wait until after college to marry. We spent the time falling deeper in love and traveling, movies, carnivals, Renaissance Faires and cruising in the mustang. We spent every moment together holidays and days off. If we weren't in class or work we were together. It felt like the longest engagement of my life. I just wanted to be married already. We planned the wedding for a Fall day in 2002. My colors were lilac and pink (thinking back not very fall like but I had my heart set on those colors). We married among 70 of our closest family and friends. It was beautiful! Here's a few pics of us with our moms and the cakes.

 

[Syreeta]

After marrying we bought our first home and tried to start our family. It was a difficult road conceiving. But after many years of trying we had our first son. We were overjoyed! Finally we had the perfect family life. But life doesn't not come without challenges. I continued my education and the lord continued to bless us with children we had not planned for. 3 kids in less than 6 years! We were happy to be blessed with more children as we had no idea we could conceive without intervention. The stress came when we both lost our jobs in the turned economy and we were losing our house. To top it off I was continually being hospitalized only to find I suffer from a mental disorder. We couldn't handle it...so I accepted a job out of state and David did not join me. A few years later we divorced. But GOD

By way of our three blessings we co-parented across state lines and kept in touch. Our blessings:

 

[Syreeta]

As you've probably guessed by now... we're back together! David moved to NJ to be with us in September a couple of years ago and on the following Mother's Day proposed. We had originally wanted to marry in 2019 on the Magic but felt it was best to spend our Disney money on a new home (well David really had to twist my arm lol). So we cancelled the booked trip and bought a 3 bedroom. I wanted to marry quickly so I was going to marry Disney style on another cruise line but my heart was set on Disney. So I cancelled another booked cruise and am waiting until Nov. 2020 for our Fairytale Wedding. We received our planning packet and I sent it in a few weeks ago.

 

[Syreeta]

We set sail Nov. 1st 2020! We are assigned Stephanie as our coordinator. We received our planning guide and pretty much are keeping the ceremony short, sweet and standard. Below are a few elements from our planning guide. We have a few customization aspects we'd like to include but more on that later.

Guest list: My sweetie, me and our three kids!
Salon: Makeup only
Floral: French Roses- Red
Music: All Disney Selections- requested coordinator send Married Life from Up to ship for first dance
Cake: Oh the cake--I wanted one of the Mickey themed cake or the nautical themed cake but the expense if more than I want to pay for such a small ceremony/guests. I do have an Etsy cake topper but I must adapt it to be able to use it as it can't be stuck into the cake. I'll let you know if I'm successful.
Palo- Yes, please it will be a first! Right after ceremony and after we check in the kids into kids club.
We requested a Day 2 ceremony and will be using the ship photographer but I am totally nervous about this based on mixed reviews but we didn't have professional photography at our first wedding so..... I'll take the chance.

 

[ktjl92]

Congratulations on reuniting with your love! Have fun with your planning!

 

[Syreeta]

Congratulations on reuniting with your love! Have fun with your planning!

Thank you!

 

[Syreeta]

My sister and nieces stayed with us this weekend. My sister would like to come to the wedding. So she's looking into to pricing. It would be really cool if they could join us. I'll have to update my packet. I'm wondering if she'll mind if we eat at Palo without her? I was kind of looking forward to an intimate experience. Am I wrong?

 

[Karin1984]

Really depends on the relationship with your sister. If you have a good relationship, she will understand it automatically that this is an intimate meal for 2.
If you think she needs some instruction, better give it to her as soon as possible, be open and clear about you love her being at the wedding and having a family vacation, but at times X, Y and Z, you will split ways for certain events. That's time she can spend time with her own family.

 

[Syreeta]

Really depends on the relationship with your sister. If you have a good relationship, she will understand it automatically that this is an intimate meal for 2.
If you think she needs some instruction, better give it to her as soon as possible, be open and clear about you love her being at the wedding and having a family vacation, but at times X, Y and Z, you will split ways for certain events. That's time she can spend time with her own family.

Good points. I don't think she has many expectations but on our last cruise vacation we had every meal together, so you're right telling her ahead of time would help. Thank you

 

[Syreeta]

It's been a pretty relaxed summer and fall as far as planning goes, as prices are released for flights and lodging now that we're less than a year out- I am starting to stress a bit. We have an "open loop" cruise so we have to make our way back to NJ from PR. With 5 people and the estimates what they are now is pretty hefty price tag. Either way we have to do transportation to the port and from the airport home as well. I want to say it will be worth it in the end... maybe it's holiday stress too so much money going out the window so quickly.

I still haven't adapted my cake topper either to submit for approval. I did buy my daughter a new flower girl dress and she loves it!

 

[Syreeta]

Happy New Year! Our November Merrytime cruise wedding is so far away but I'm getting super excited. I reached out to the coordinator today to see what I need to do to schedule my daughter for BBB. I'd like her to have the experience and have her hair done for the ceremony. For the boys, I already bought their outfits for the previously scheduled cruise and I'm afraid I will have to repurchase--they are growing like weeds! Here's the dress I got for my daughter the flower girl.

I've decided I would really like to treat myself and take a limo to the cruise port. I think it will be cool for the kids as well. I'm getting prices for that now but ultimately it will come down to the budget. My friend said she'd drive my van to the cruise port and pick us up from the airport. I thought that was nice of her.

We also decided to do Fish Extenders. This will be our first time participating. I already purchased a cruise document pouch for our five rooms. I hope people find it useful. I guess it really could be used as a small bag for anything. I have to make our fish extender but have a nifty idea on what to craft. I'll let you know how it turns out!

I ordered custom shirts for the boys to wear on embarkment day. Team bride and team groom for the best man and bride escort. I also order a bride and groom shirts but they haven't arrived and a flower girl iron-on to put on a t-shirt for my daughter.

Now I will focus on securing the passports and watching flights.

 

[starry_solo]

How about a Minnie Van?

 

[Syreeta]

How about a Minnie Van?

I think Minnie vans are only in Florida. I will check! We leave from the NYC cruise port and return to Puerto Rico on a repositioning Cruise. Thanks for the suggestion and reading our journal!

 

[Syreeta]

Are you all ready for Spring yet? Today the weather is quite nice and I'm super excited about the change in season. Right at this moment, we are researching if the onboard salon shave for men is a good idea for David. From what we can gather it really depends on the type of skin you have whether that be sensitive or whatever.

We paid for our cruise, gratuities, and wedding package in full last week! We booked a limo to the port and from the airport as well. We had one limo company kind of discourage us from taking the limo but I can't be talked out of it! So we went to another company. Even though my co-worker said she'd help out by driving my van for us, I don't want to risk straining our work relationship should something go wrong. This is a major event in our lives. Another big decision we made this past month was to spring for bringing our own photographer and videographer! I watched this youtube video on the 5 essential things for a wedding and photography (what you take from the wedding) made the list. With so many doubts about onboard photography, I didn't want to take the risk. We decided to go with Jess Collins and the videography was reasonably priced given you have to pay for travel for the photographer we decided to add that service as well.

I crafted our fish extender and bought some cabin gifts (useful items for all) for the other 4 cabins in our group. I can't wait for them to finalize the list so I can shop especially for the kids in our group. I purchased some Disney Luggage as well. I bought my daughter a pair of gold shoes and a Mickey necklace and bracelet. It's been a spending flurry but I'm thankful to have a tax return to support some of this spending!

Oh and we booked our flights. We decided on Frontier-- all said and done the one-way flight was $139 per person. Now if people would stop asking me if we are still going on the cruise because of coronavirus! Come he** or high water, we're getting on that ship lol. We also applied for our passports this past month.

As you can see there has been a flurry of activity in the planning department. Upcoming- Will my daughter sing at the wedding? (She wanted to bring her flute to play but they are not allowed) Attire for the boys and groom, beauty treatments (I want to be a redhead) and excursions. Everything is coming together, it seems so magical!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Syreeta]

I haven’t felt much like planning the past month and a half. I had hair and makeup appointments of which both were canceled because of quarantine. I told myself I wasn’t going to worry about the wedding because it’s 7 months away but another cruise line canceled their NYC sailing for the rest of the year and now I’m worried.
My photographer asked if I had a plan B but I really do not and that worries me that I maybe should start planning one. Anyway I’ll try to stay positive.

 

[Syreeta]

Today I'm here to report we have a Plan B. We've been discussing whether the sailing will get canceled or if we will have a lot of restrictions if we do sail. Magic sailings have now been canceled up to Oct 1, 2020 (I believe) due to COVID 19. So we put a deposit down for April 2021 as a back-up date. The ship would be the Fantasy is we go with Plan B. I have not made the wedding deposit however but have discussed this with Maxine since she is coordinating during this time.

OAN I have purchased some bridal Minnie ears and cufflinks from Shop Disney. The cufflinks will be a wedding gift to David. We have a Youtube channel so if you're curious to see some of the wedding planning through that medium our channel is:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQd8smq69MEUECl3YDRr13w/featured?view_as=subscriber

Here you can see the bridal ears as I uploaded a video a couple of days ago.

 

[Syreeta]

We’ve learned that more sailing have been cancelled because of COVID-19 but as of today our wedding cruise is still scheduled. Our cruise group has issued the FE assignments so my daughter and I spent some time today shopping for our group. I purchased a Jim Shore cake topper and ordered a flower girl basket for my daughter. We had a homemade kissing ball but I think it will not travel well so I’m now using it as home decor. Yesterday my honey and kids passports arrived after 20 weeks but it’s a relief to have them. 104 days to go!

 

[Ginamarie]

Hi Syreeta, did you definitely move your cruise to April? I wound up cancelling the 11/1 cruise a few weeks ago but I saw that Disney just cancelled the itinerary. I wound up getting Frontier Airline credits for our airfare. Without a 2020 cruise, we bumped up our vow renewal to July 2021 at WDW instead of on the cruise and just used the Frontier credits towards my January planning session (hoping we can do it in person, otherwise I'll be sitting in my hotel room doing the planning session over the phone, but at least we can see the venues in person). I used my cruise deposits towards a September 2021 cruise on the Fantasy.