Are you thinking about holding a destination wedding as opposed to a wedding in your city?
This has become an increasingly popular option for many couples. There are almost 350,000 destination weddings every year, which accounts for roughly 25 percent of all American weddings.
Destination weddings are great because they allow for couples to get married in a beautiful location. They also allow all of their wedding guests to enjoy what essentially amounts to a vacation as they celebrate the happy couple.
But one thing you do want to keep in mind if you decide to hold a destination wedding is that they can be very stressful if you’re not careful. Between booking flights and finding a good local caterer for your wedding, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the process.
Here’s how to plan a destination wedding without all the stress that can sometimes come along with it.
Start by Picking Out the Perfect Location
One of the things that will help you survive the stress that often accompanies planning a destination wedding is keeping your eye on the prize. Your “prize,” in this case, will be marrying the love of your life in a dream destination.
Before you start planning out your wedding, you should decide where that destination is going to be. It should be a place that’s either special to you and your future spouse or a place that you’ve both always wanted to visit.
It should also be a place that routinely hosts destination weddings for people.
Regardless of where you choose to hold your destination wedding, it should be a place that instantly brings a smile to your face. It will make planning out your wedding that much easier once you start working on it.
Make Sure Flights and Hotels in the Area Are Affordable
Once you have the perfect location picked out for your destination wedding, you should take some time to do some research on the costs associated with getting to it.
Do a quick scan to see how much you and your guests are going to have to pay to fly to your location and stay there. If you find that the prices are astronomically high, your desired location might not be ideal.
You can, of course, try to work out a good deal for you and your guests by booking hotel rooms in bulk. But even if you do that, certain destinations might be outside of your price range.
Don’t wait until it’s too late in the game to inquire about the pricing for certain destinations.
Come Up with a Guest List for Your Wedding
Speaking of your guests, you should make an effort to put together a guest list almost as soon as you decide to host a destination wedding. This could play a big role in where you choose to hold your wedding in the first place.
Coming up with a guest list for destination weddings is a little different than coming up with one for regular weddings. You’re not going to be able to invite every single person in your life to see you get married at your preferred destination.
Keep your guest list relatively short and try to limit it to immediate family members and close friends. This makes life less stressful when you’re trying to accommodate 40 or 50 people at a destination wedding instead of 100 or 150 people.
Try Not to Get Offended if People Tell You They Can’t Attend
Generally speaking, about 50 percent of the people you invite to a destination wedding will respond by letting you know they can’t attend. Your wedding guest book will likely be a lot less full than you were anticipating.
Some people won’t be able to attend due to cost concerns. Others won’t be able to take off enough time from work to go.
Whatever the case, try not to get too offended if people RSVP “no” to your destination wedding! There’s a good chance that people would love to attend your wedding but simply can’t make it for one valid reason or another.
Hire a Wedding Planner at Your Desired Location to Work Out the Details
When you get married in the city where you live, it’s easy to have a hand in making every wedding-related decision. You get the chance to choose the caterer for the event, the DJ, the lighting, and so much more.
This is going to be next to impossible when you hold a destination wedding. Even if you’re very familiar with the destination, you probably aren’t familiar with the wedding vendors who work in it.
With that in mind, it’s a great idea to hire a wedding planner at your desired location to work out all the major and minor details of your celebration. They can bring the best vendors in the area on board and make all your wedding dreams come true.
This will prevent you from having to stress out over every little detail from afar.
Prepare for Some Last-Minute Surprises
No matter how hard you try to plan the perfect destination wedding, there are going to be last-minute surprises that throw a wrench into your plans.
Someone is going to miss their flight and not be able to attend your wedding. One of the vendors you hired to perform a specific task is going to do it differently than you imagined.
Learn to roll with the punches! Everything might not be 100 percent perfect, but you’ll still have an amazing wedding day without any stress.
Make Your Destination Wedding One to Remember
If you’re in the process of planning a destination wedding right now, do whatever you can to make it as stress-free as possible.
When you remove stress from the equation, you’ll enjoy working out the details of your wedding. You’ll also find that you’ll have a much better time once your wedding day rolls around.
Do you want to make sure you have a great time at your wedding reception? Check out our blog to see some of the reception details you can’t afford to forget.
