a party nobody would forget anytime soon. The cruise liner would be willing to take the entire party anywhere they typically sailed at standard cabin fare plus an additional fee for the wedding itself.
I worried that the rich and famous might even bite on a week or two adventure for the entire wedding, as that seemed something the excessively wealthy would indulge in.
I wondered if my boss would let me take a week or two off to go to a wedding.
On Friday night, I headed to the hotel with my pets in tow, braced for a conversation I’d ultimately hate and love at the same time, and called Rick.
“I was wondering when you’d call me,” Rick answered. “How is everything going?”
“I survived my first week of work, and I have a weekend of helping a couple with their taxes ahead of me. One of the clients has pet spiders, and I’m pleased to report there were no fatalities from the spider. I’m not sure her husband is convinced he’s going to survive sharing a home with his wife’s pet spiders, but he seems to be a good sport about it. I did find some time to work on the wedding, and I had some questions.”
“I may have answers, and if I don’t, I know who to ask.”
“There is a cruise liner that would be willing to allow you to book the entire ship to any of their regular destinations for the standard cabin fare plus a fee for the wedding. With the numbers you were tossing around, you almost have enough to fill almost the entire ship, hitting the liner’s minimum to sail. There are some pretty big yachts out there, but they run the same price as the cruise liner if you have a big enough guest list, which you might.”
“We can make the guest list larger if the ship can host the entire wedding party. We were limiting it due to space restrictions. My uncle is handy with technology, and we were going to record and distribute for those who couldn’t come anyway.”
That sounded like my personal hell in the making, but I would figure some way to survive through the planning.
Focusing on the perks of using a cruise ship for the wedding might help. “It’s a pretty big ship, but I expect the deck would be crowded if we tried to cram that many people in one place at the same time. I can ask if they have places on the ship where we could spread the gathering. It would be extra planning to account for several celebrations happening at the same time, but it could happen. Depending on the total size of the wedding, yachts are an option, and there are some really nice ones that sail out of New York. The yachts usually max out at no more than six hundred guests, so if you want a bigger wedding, you might want to go with the cruise liner. They have cruises ranging from a week to an entire month, although they’ll do a one-day event if you book the ship before they establish their schedule. They essentially make the ship available between official cruises, and they charge a fee for doing it because they’ll need so many staff on board. But you have to book it far in advance either way. If you take the whole ship, they have to schedule everything.”
“That’s tempting. If we use a week-long cruise, most should be able to get the time off, and I would have sufficient time to make my plans. That said, what about our dogs?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t ask if they’d allow dogs on board. I can ask them next time I talk to them.”
“Please do so, as I think that’ll matter. I’d rather not leave Annabel Lee for a week.”
“I wouldn’t want to leave mine, either, but I have a good pet sitter in mind if it’s necessary.”
“For some reason, a cat on a cruise ship seems to be a recipe for disaster.”
“So are a bunch of dogs, but it might be viable. Lenore doesn’t seem to mind her harness if it means she gets to stay near Edgar Allan Paw.”
“Ask the cruise liner if they’ll accommodate cats and dogs, what the extra fee for it would be, and what their room cleanup fees would be afterwards. Annabel Lee loves boats, so she will adapt nicely, but you may want to take your old man on a test cruise to see if he