Our services · Months 12 to 1 before sailing, in order
Legal paperwork and licence guidance
Which licence, from which authority, in which order, by when — for the port, the state or the foreign country you marry in.
The Cruise Bride coordinates the sailing, the cabins and the guest travel. The cruise line runs its own wedding program where one is offered.
Tell us about your celebration
A cruise wedding specialist replies personally, usually within one business day.
- When it happens
- Months 12 to 1 before sailing, in order
- Cost to you
- Nothing — the lines pay us
- Who does the work
- Your planning specialist
- Included with
- Every wedding we plan
The legal side of a cruise wedding is a sequence problem. Every ceremony option — home port, foreign port, at sea where offered — maps to a jurisdiction with its own licence, waiting period, witness rules and validity window. Get the order wrong and the ceremony is beautiful and means nothing.
We map the sequence for your exact itinerary: where the licence comes from, when you apply, who signs, what gets filed afterwards and where. For the common routes — a Florida port wedding, a Bahamas ceremony ashore, a captain-led wedding at sea — we have done the paperwork so many times the checklist is muscle memory.
The honest advice most couples take: do the legal part in the simplest jurisdiction available to you and let the ceremony be the ceremony. For some couples that is a courthouse the week before; for others the port wedding is already simple. We lay out the options and you choose.
Planning timeline
A realistic timeline for a cruise wedding
Eighteen to twelve months out, the only decisions that matter are the ceremony type and the sailing. Everything else — florals, attire, the reception menu — is downstream of those two, and locking them early is what keeps the rest calm.
Twelve to eight months out we open the group block and take the first deposits. This is the step couples skip and later regret: once a popular sailing crosses about eighty per cent sold, keeping twenty guests on the same deck stops being possible at any price.
Eight to four months out, the cruise line's wedding department confirms the ceremony slot, the venue on the ship and the package inclusions. In parallel we chase every guest for a passport that is valid at least six months past the return date.
Inside ninety days, final payment falls due, the guest list stops changing, and we publish the single page that tells each guest their flight window, hotel night, boarding time and what to wear. From that point your job is the dress and the vows.
How it starts
One conversation covers all of it
You do not need to know which services you need. Tell us the date range, the guest count and the ceremony you have in mind, and the plan that comes back shows which of these pieces your wedding uses and when.
The form below is the whole beginning. No fee, no obligation, and a reply from a person rather than a mailing list.
The numbers couples ask for first
- $0.0k–$0k
- Typical cruise-line ceremony package, before the reception
- $000–$000
- Per guest, per night, inside cabin at double occupancy
- 00–00 mo
- Lead time we ask for when a group is coming with you
- $0
- What our planning costs you — the cruise lines pay us
Questions couples ask
Answers before you commit to anything
It can be, depending on where and how it is held — home port, foreign port, or at sea under the lines whose captains are licensed. Each has different paperwork, which is what this service exists for.
That country's licence rules apply — documents, translations, waiting periods. We confirm the current requirements before you commit to that option.
The officiant files in the jurisdiction of the ceremony. We confirm it is done and tell you how to order certified copies.
The rest of the work
Every other service, in the order it happens.
- Full cruise wedding planningOne specialist who runs the whole thing — ship, sailing, ceremony, cabins, guests and reception — at no cost to you.
- Group cabin blocksA held block of cabins at a locked group rate, so your guests book into the same price, the same decks and the same dinner.
- Ceremony coordination with the cruise lineWe book and manage the ceremony itself — the slot, the venue, the officiant, the licence — with the line's wedding department.
- Reception design at seaFrom a reserved section of the dining room to a private venue with an open bar — the reception formats that actually work on a ship.
- Photography and video at seaShip photographers, local port photographers, and the honest trade-offs of each — plus what the base packages actually include.
- Guest travel, flights and pre-cruise hotelsEvery guest arrives the day before, sleeps near the port, and boards calm — arranged for your whole list, not just you.
- Guest management and RSVPsEvery guest question answered, every cabin booked, every dietary need logged — without a single spreadsheet touching your inbox.
- Accessibility and special needs planningAccessible cabins, mobility logistics, dietary needs and medical requirements — arranged early, when the ship can still say yes.
- Payment plans and budgetsSmall deposits, monthly payments, and a final deadline months before sailing — how a whole guest list affords the trip.