Wife and I started cruising in 2007 in memory of my mother who when visiting her in NY in her last years, would always tell us to take a cruise instead of us visiting her at hospitals on every one of our vacations. After she passed away in 2006 we booked a cruise for her 1 year anniversary (Sept' 2007) and we were hooked. The following year we took our oldest son (Michael) and as a graduation gift his girlfriend (Stephanie). They also got hooked on cruising and took their 2nd cruise in 2009. Fast forward to 2012 and we are cruising the Carnival Magic for Michael & Stephanie's wedding. They've been a couple since 2005 and decided to tie the knot on the high seas...well at least on the Galveston port. Wife and I thought we would not be able to cruise because wife was unemployed from 2009-2011 but through the grace of GOD, she found work and we saved as much as we could so we can be there for son and bride.

The day of wedding my wife was able to convince her hairdresser to open up shop at 5am and take care of the bridal party and mother of bride and groom. It was raining pretty heavy that Sunday morning as we all arrived at local movie theatre parking lot so we can all car pool to cruise terminal which is 25 minutes away. The bride and Groom chose this ship and date because of the itinerary and because we have only sailed on Carnival Conquest and wanted to experience this new ship. We had 75 guests at the onboard wedding and 25 of those were sailing with many of them new cruisers. Some guests had traveled from as far away as Abilene, Texas, which is about 8 hours away. I was nervous about leaving my 2 pomeranians and 4 other dogs (son's and fiancee) with sister in-law but at end they were still alive. While waiting for instructions from the 2 wedding planners that Carnival assigned to wedding party and guests, we almost had the maid of honor miss the entire cruise. It seems that after plenty of advice from me on facebook leading up to the cruise, she forgot to bring either her passport or birth cert and only brought her ID. Well lucky for her she lives in Houston and someone was dog sitting at her house. The dog sitter had to fax birth cert from Walgreens and after about 1 hour she was cleared. It was funny seeing the best man (Ryan) trying to keep groom from bumping into bride. Ryan did a very good job. After about 2 hours, the bridal and groom party was taken separately to get in line to board the ship and the rest of guests were right behind us. The groom and groomsmen (including myself, bride's dad/brother) were taken to the cabin of best man and we got to try on the tuxedos we rented from carnival. I was slightly nervous that the measurements that I gave Carnival 2 months earlier were going to be wrong but they were not. We had to be at Showtime theatre around 1pm for the ceremony, which followed with a 1 hour open bar and hor devours.From time we got on ship to time of ceremony the guests were allowed to tour the ship, which was cool. The ceremony was beautiful and Carnival did a fabulous job with providing everything needed for a fantastic wedding. The photographer assigned to us was Luka Bokonjic who took beautiful pictures of ceremony and of the bride/groom throughout the ship after the ceremony. Wife and son had the mother and son dance and they picked a beautiful song that had many of the guests grabbing tissues. Mother /Son Wedding Song was "All To You" by DJ Keo (Scott Keo)

After ceremony we said our goodbyes to those not cruising and got ready to have some fun on the Carnival Magic. We departed from Galveston about 5:30, which was more than 1 hour late. Read more