Friday night after the Birthday Booze Cruise in the Bahamas, our group had a short amount of time to head back to our rooms and quickly change into the red, white and blue clothing we packed for the cruise’s formal night.
As I previously mentioned, on a past cruise, our group decided to use the one formal night aboard the ship to get all gussied up, following a specific theme.
We’ve done ‘80s formal in the past and used the themes you guys selected to select this year’s theme of red, white and blue attire!
Gotta love the plethora of random formal photo ops all over the cruise ship! Oh and yes, the white gloves I wore clearly brought out the Glamour Shot pose burning inside of me.
One of the best parts of doing a self-imposed theme for formal night was waiting for each person to come out of their room and debut their take on the red, white and blue attire. As you can see in the photo above, Ricky and Daniel ended up ordering the exact same vest off Amazon.com!
The bow ties were a personal favorite. (For the record Ricky and Daniel are “negatively reviewing the crap out of those vests” on Amazon because they bled all over their white shirts… which made everyone else laugh.)
Ryan was quite formal, sporting a jacket with a tailcoat, a cumber bund and a top hat that got passed around and hijacked throughout the evening.
My dress came from the junior prom section at Ross while my shawl was sequin blue fabric that I had cut at Hobby Lobby. I actually paid more to have my dress altered than I did for the the dress itself and literally had people at the alteration shop dying laughing at the ridiculous layers of tulle in the skirt of the dress.
Leslie added red, white and blue sequins and fringe to a velour dress that she found on sale and topped it off with a red star jacket she got at the Salvation Army store. Her dress looked like a leotard on top and was all kinds of fabulous.
Ross bought nearly his entire outfit for under $10 at a thrift store!
Laurel’s floor-length red dress was her sister’s old prom dress. Jenn and Leah found their dresses online. Jenn’s dress ironically enough was ordered from the United Kingdom!
As we walked to dinner, we got high fives from other cruisers and a lot of smiles and even some picture requests. Yikes!
I even heard one woman ask her husband whether or not we were part of the evening’s show and others were convinced we were celebrating something special. Ryan’s cousin Daniel told people who asked that we were celebrating a wedding aboard the ship. Yep. A red, white and blue-themed wedding.
Dinner
Dinner itself was delicious and I managed to capture my meal on camera – some of the only food pictures I took on the cruise, so please enjoy my food-loving friends!
To start, I ordered a Greek salad and ate every last bite. I was hungry and it was delicious.
Formal night on Carnival cruises (and other cruises too, I believe) always comes with lobster tail as an entrée option at dinner and I always order it without hesitation.
I cleared that plate too and loved the buttery mashed potatoes.
For dessert, my friend Laurel planned a surprise! She prearranged for a birthday cake to be delivered to our table for me so I could have candles to blow out on my birthday.
It was so thoughtful and I was completely surprised! (I didn’t wear my white gloves during dinner because they made my hands sweat, but they somehow ended up covered in chocolate mousse! Naturally.)
We all split the chocolate mousse cake and it was fantastic.
Formal night concluded a full day full of a lot of fun.
It was definitely a memorable birthday!
***Disclaimer: I received a thoughtful comment on a previous post when I mentioned the theme of our formal night and wanted to be sure to include a disclaimer with this post. I want to make sure that everyone knows that my friends and I are all very proud Americans. My grandfather was a veteran and many of the people in our group of friends have family and friends who are veterans or are currently serving our country and we deeply respect their service.
Just like Americans wear red, white and blue on the Fourth of July, we wore these colors together and American-flag themed clothing as a group simply for fun. We received nothing but positive feedback from fellow cruisers and veterans aboard the ship. Please know we mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone and did not hear anything negative from those on the cruise with us. I hold those who serve our country in the highest regard.***
![\"Quantcast\"/](\"//pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-1e3-7hOJ_U8Bg.gif\")
Yeah, you all look great!
AMAZING! My husband and I JUST went on that exact cruise for our Honeymoon April 8th. The Sensation provides a plethora of hilarious photo ops. My favorite activity was walking around the gallery laughing at all the pictures.I bet we would have had a lot more fun with yall on the boat. My husband is in the Army and we love anything patriotic and ridiculous. Great idea!
These are absolutely fantastic!! I love everyones outfits. You and your friends seriously rule! How creative and fun.
I LOVE the outfits!!! I think it was all in good spirits, and it looks like a blast!
Oh man you guys look GREAT! Ryan sure did go all out!!!! You and your friends are awesome 🙂
It’s sad that you have to put disclaimers like that. Some people just really don’t know how to have any fun and don’t have a sense of humor. Props to you and your friends girl for getting all dressed up and having a BLAST! =D
i’m surprised they found the tulle on the dress to be laughable because all i keep seeing are very pouffy short dresses being promoted for prom season… shorter and pouffier than that one! isn’t pouffy in?
OMG I adore y’all! Those dresses are fantastic! Too fun!
I love your outfits! It looks like you guys all had a blast! And I don’t see how your outfits could be taken disrespectfully, you were just having fun!
Uh, this was 100% disrespectful to ALL of the other passengers who actually take formal night seriously. Very, very immature. You guys are HOW old?
Disrespectful yet they got high fives and picture requests from other cruisers… OK?? Why go on a crusie if you want to look constipated? I think that they were just having fun, which is something you clearly do not know how to do.
You guys looked awesome, Julie! 🙂
PS: I have your sister’s shoes, G by Guess from Macy’s!
i’m not sure whether or not you’ve been on a cruise before, but on carnival cruises, formal night is basically a guideline. some people (like the table next to us) even wear jeans to formal night. while you can dres formally, it is not required and many, many people don’t.
Wow, someone must have a very boring life. It looks like they had a fantastic time on THEIR vacation, and besides, it’s the Carnival line, not the Queen Mary or a private yacht. Take a chill pill and move on.
Shoot sorry Julie! That was directed at the first poster, not you. I think your theme was really fun and kitschy, not something to get all bent out of shape about.
What a great idea!! You guys look so festive and you should totally whip out these outfits for the 4th of July!
i’ve been waiting for this post to see what everyone came up with! love it! 🙂
i wish my friends would do fun things like this…they’re much too reserved. lol.
um, i actually kind of like leah’s dress : o
she was a vision! 🙂
Haha who is the man in front of Ross in the first photo?! Photobomber??! These pictures made me laugh so hard hahahha I LOVE themed events!
I just love how y’all dressed up! so funny!
formal night is always so fun, especially with the lobster. yum!
We are going on a boozecruise soon and hv decided to use your partry idea … I made it “come as your favourite character from a movie/book as it will be so random and “out there”.
I love it! Those outfits are so classy! ha Looks like a blast!!! I hope you had an amazing birthday! That cake looks delicious!!!! Yum! 🙂
Looking good!
You guys are hysterical!!! What an awesome idea! And so wonderfully executed! Props to everyone for some epic outfits and you should totally repurpose them for 4th of July!!
If wearing cheesy red, white, and blue outfits are disrespectful to the military, then the early 90’s were one big slap in the USA’s face. lol These outfits were too fun!
You guys look fantastic! I find it so unusual that you had to include a disclaimer? Why do some Americans seem so easily offended? I thought they were deeply patriotic, so dressing up like that would be in support, no? I just don’t understand it. Where i come from, if we dressed up like that, in our country’s colours or icons, it would be perceived as funny, and then after might come a lil bit of pride. But mostly we take the piss out of ourselves 😉 (And we too send our soldiers to war).
Awesome ideas..hahah! Hope you had fun and got a tan.
You’re kidding me…somebody wrote you a negative comment about your theme?! Wow, people need to get some serious lives. You guys look awesome!
You guys are hilarious!! Ryan’s outfit is the best 🙂
Kudos for the disclaimer, but it annoys me you HAVE to include it. How the heck would anyone find what you did disrespectful?? besides… if they don’t like it, don’t like at it!
keep rocking!!
i love the outfit you ended up with! It’s totally something you could wear again but was still perfect for the night.
Looks like a fantastic time! You all are so cute!
I’m such a loser – I’ve been waiting for you post about your formal night! Love the blue tights!!! Looks like a blast!
Maybe I’m crazy, but I’m very appreciative of the disclaimer. I’m actually impressed that you took the time to realize that this can come off seeming extremely disrespectful, like you are making a mockery of our flag. While I would have never thought that was your intention, I’m glad you took the time to explain.
This is the best thing I’ve seen in a while. Genius idea.
You guys look kind of like Captain America’s dysfunctional cousins.
This is so ridiculously funny! I love your groups idea, how fun! You have some great pics to capture the event! You are lucky to be able to take an inexpensive cruise!
As someone who serves in the military and is married to someone in the military I don’t see the respect in your attire for formal night at all…. In fact I see nothing but mocking of the flag and DISrespect.
I guess you can’t please everyone. I think your theme was fun and not the least bit disrespectful. This is America and last I checked, you have the freedom to do what you want, as long as you aren’t hurting someone else.
Came across your blog accidentally after I googled what to wear on a cruise. (Our first cruise is next week.) LOL when I saw your 80’s formal night, I love theme birthday parties and somehow 80’s is always part of it…3 years ago 80’s celebrities, 2 years ago 80’s workout, last year just general 80’s…ROFL when I saw you guys did red, white and blue…my next suggestion for you is pimp formal!!!! Enjoy your pics/blog so much!