First crisis: HANDLED!

Bradley and I have known that we were going to get married on a cruise WELL before he proposed. So the day after he proposed, I began researching cruise lines and wedding packages and destinations. After a few weeks, I decided that we were going to get married on a Princess Cruise to the Caribbean in August, 2011. I called Princess and they told me that their schedule for that time of year would be out in May. Therefore, starting May 1, I began checking their website every day to see if the schedule had been put out yet. By June 1, still no schedule. Patience is not a virtue I possess, so I called them. The woman assured me the schedule would be out soon and to just be patient. I hung up and tried to be patient.

The way that the Princess Cruise Line website works is that there are a list of destinations, a list of ships, a list of cruise-lengths and a list of departure ports. When you click on one, the Caribbean for example, the options still available to you turn blue and everything else remains white. I'm so used to clicking "Caribbean" and having everything after May, 2011, go white, it took me a moment yesterday to realize that there was MUCH more blue than usual!!!! In fact, it appeared they had put out their Caribbean schedule until March, 2012! The one month that was still white? August, 2011.

Nervous, I called the cruise line. After a very long time with a woman who was very kind, I finally got her to admit that Princess Cruise Lines would NOT be going to the Caribbean in August of 2011. I hung up the phone and proceeded to panic.

After several hours of e-mailing my friends, calling my family and forcing Bradley to drive up to my work during rush hour traffic to have dinner with me and "just talk this out," I finally came to terms with what I really wanted: I wanted to get married to Bradley on a cruise in the Caribbean with the greatest possible number of my friends and family around me. Initially we had decided that it was important for us to be married by the captain during a "day at sea," but that was going to have to go by the wayside (Princess and Celebrity - who also isn't going to the Caribbean in August - are the only cruise lines that can marry you at sea). We were also hoping to use a more elegant line, but that isn't going to be possible either.

In the end, we decided to go with Carnival Cruises. There are two possibilities, both during the same week of August, just with different destinations. So we've contacted our travel agent (my step-mother) and have asked her to talk to the cruise line about getting us booked on one of those two cruises.

I'm afraid to say more for fear of jinxing us, so I will simply close by saying that my first wedding crisis has officially happened and even Bradley said that I handled it well. I will admit to panicking for a few moments, but once the panic was over, I just tried to figure out what my options still were. Luckily I have a great support network around me who quickly started pointing out other options and ideas. And now I just play the waiting game...again... ;)