Selling Cruises: Weddings at Sea
by John Hawks

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If you’d like to sell more cruise weddings and vow renewal trips, keep these tips from other OSSN agents in mind:

Weddings at sea may not fit every client’s desires. For example, a cruise wedding is the perfect choice for a couple desiring to tie the knot with just themselves or a manageable number of friends and family members in attendance. If your clients want to invite their closest 500 acquaintances to the happy occasion, getting hitched at sea may not be their best option (or, you’ll earn a whopping commission on this trip!)

Pick the optimum timing for the ceremony. If your clients will be traveling with their wedding party, you can schedule the wedding during a port stop or during onboard windows set aside by the cruise line. On the other hand, some couples may prefer a ceremony early on the day of embarkation, with guests coming aboard with the cruise line’s permission to observe the event, so that they can enjoy the cruise by themselves once the ship sets sail.

You’ll get better wedding service from the larger, mid-market cruise lines. Some luxury cruise lines like Cunard and Seabourn actually do not allow onboard weddings or permit passengers to organize their own events without involving the ship. On the other hand, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Disney, NCL, and Princess actively seek wedding bookings.

Ask first before you count on the captain to officiate. Despite Capt. Stubing’s example, only a few lines actually allow the ship’s captain to officiate at onboard weddings as a standard practice.

Keep a “Plan B” in mind if you schedule the nuptials during a port stop. What happens, for example, if bad weather or other troubles cause the cancellation of the port call? CruiseCritic.com actually recommends avoiding weddings in ports that require cruise ships to tender, because weather conditions could easily cause the ship to skip that stop.

DestinationWeddings.com, an OSSN supplier member, offers home-based agents more information on planning wedding vacations. Also, you can consult these pages on the following cruise line Web sites:

* Carnival Cruise Lines, with onboard chapels on several of its vessels (but plan ahead -- there’s a firm limit of three weddings per day on the ship, and the ceremonies can take place only in port)

* Disney Cruise Line, a popular choice for “second” weddings and stepfamily weddings with kids involved

* Norwegian Cruise Line, with basic packages for shipboard and land-based ceremonies

* Princess Cruises, which offers dedicated wedding chapels and several levels of wedding packages (handling up to 80 guests!) on many of its ships, as well as add-ons like live Web cams for broadcasting the ceremony to friends and family members back home

* Royal Caribbean, with chapels on its Voyager-class ships and the industry’s widest array of shoreside ceremony options

(Want to share more cruise wedding tips with your fellow OSSN agents? Send them to us!)

(Photo credits: Carnival Cruises Lines; Disney Cruise Line)