Destination Weddings Discussions

Planning an Out of State Wedding

I recently got engaged and am planning a wedding for summer 2017. My finance and I are from Iowa, but recently moved to Arizona. We would like to have our wedding in Iowa, because most of our family and friends live in the midwest. I have always looked forward to planning my wedding and being involved in every aspect.. bridal shows, dress shopping with family and friends, cake tasting etc. I am worried that trying to plan the wedding from afar that I will miss out on these things. I recently got a new job in Arizona and don't have a lot of vacation time or the budget to go home for all of these things.

Any advice on planning a wedding out of state would be very helpful!

Re: Planning an Out of State Wedding

  • SP29SP29 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited January 2016
    We planned our wedding from 2 provinces away. We both grew up in the same hometown, where 95% of our family lives, then moved away for jobs later. We had our wedding in our hometown.

    Our wedding was held in January (2 years ago). So a year prior to that, we had a planned trip home anyway for Christmas. Prior to this I researched venues online and called around for price quotes. I settled on 3 venues to choose from and set up appointments during our visit home. We toured 3 venues, settled on one, then put down the deposit for it. 

    The next visit home was in July. Again, prior to that visit I did online/over the phone research. Settled on 3 DJ's, 3 Photos, 3 florists and 3 bakers. In a 2.5 week period, we had appointments will all those vendors, made a decision, signed contracts and put down deposits. 

    The next visit back was a week before the wedding where we took care of the final details.

    Any other communication with vendors was done by email, the phone or Skype. Lots of scanned and shared documents (contracts, music lists). 

    It was very do-able. It did help that we had planned visits back anyway to visit family, and that our family was supportive. My mom took one of our payments to the venue for us, but otherwise we mailed cheques or gave credit card numbers. 

    If you have time in advance to plan, and you are organized, it works out well. Even though the second visit was a whirlwind, it was nice to know that A,B,C and D were done at settled. 

    I bought my dress in the city were I lived, same with DH. We bought our rings online, ordered invitations online. 
  • edited January 2016
    What you are describing is not really a DW, which in a way is nice because you can most likely travel back to Iowa for minimal cost (just an airplane ticket) and you can potentially rely on family to assist with things, if they offer. Just like PP, maybe mom can make a payment for you. Or dad can drive by a potential location to scope it out. Or maybe friends and family know vendors and can help point you in a direction. Plus, if most people in both families are there already, then you won't have as high of a decline rate as opposed to getting married in the Caribbean.

    This situation you are in is far from uncommon. Lots of people get married "back home" after they have moved away. You should be able to get lots of advice from posters on here.

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  • Knottie1449118240 said:
    I recently got engaged and am planning a wedding for summer 2017. My finance and I are from Iowa, but recently moved to Arizona. We would like to have our wedding in Iowa, because most of our family and friends live in the midwest. I have always looked forward to planning my wedding and being involved in every aspect.. bridal shows, dress shopping with family and friends, cake tasting etc. I am worried that trying to plan the wedding from afar that I will miss out on these things. I recently got a new job in Arizona and don't have a lot of vacation time or the budget to go home for all of these things.

    Any advice on planning a wedding out of state would be very helpful!


    We got married in Hawaii, and planned from Alberta.  The local Hawaii board here was very useful for vendor suggestions, so check out the Iowa board for suggestions.  I planned everything through e-mail, though our venue had a great website with packages too.  

    I shopped for my dress at home, and took my Mom and occasionally one friend.  Do you have any friends in AZ who would be willing to go?  Or maybe your Mom want to fly out to AZ for a visit and shopping trip?  We flew it out to Hawaii on the plane and had it steamed there.  I also attended bridal shows at home, just for ideas and free cake samples.  Sure, it wasn't useful for booking vendors, but I still go the experience and ideas for what I wanted.  

    We were also fortunate enough that we found a seat sale and went to Hawaii in August to do a "planning trip".  Truthfully, we didn't need to go, but it was an excuse to two to Hawaii anyway.  We ended up eating at the restaurant that was providing food, so it helped to pick our menu.  We also did a cake tasting, but ended up booking with someone else anyway.  Our cake was still amazing.  

    If you can't meet with your vendors, use reviews and well known vendors.  And remember that they do weddings all of the time, and if they are reputable, you will be likely to get something beautiful.  Everything at our wedding was amazing as these companies do flowers, food, etc. for weddings all of the time.  Good luck planning!

  • Are we talking about Des Moines?  Plan your trip home very carefully.  David's Bridal and Schaffer's are your main bridal shops for dresses.  Look at venues.
    Before you go, you should have your budget and your guest list drawn up.  Church wedding?  Arrange that first, before you plan a reception.
    Use a venue that is set up for weddings, like a country club.  They do all the work, and you can have telephone conversations about details.
    It's really not that different, since you already know the area.
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  • I live in Atlanta and am currently planning my wedding in Philadelphia where my fiancé and I are from. I also thought that planning a wedding out of state was going to be hard, but it's actually very doable and hasn't been too stressful.

    I have flown back to Philly on 3 separate weekend trips (most of these I planned around events that I was flying back home for anyways). I did all of my research online using the knot app and recommendations from friends/family/venue. The only vendor I actually needed to meet with in person was the venue when we were initially searching and then to do the food/cake tasting. In my search for a venue, I made sure to only look at locations that did everything from catering, bartending, provided chairs/tables/linens, wedding cake, etc. This has made it much easier for me since I don't have to worry about all these extra things.

    My DJ, florist and photographer I have communicated with mainly through e-mail and Skype which has worked out perfectly fine. They have all dealt with out of town brides so it was nothing new for them.

    Dress shopping: This was one of my weekend trips home. I picked locations that had both wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses so that we could knock that out all at once in one weekend. If you would rather do this where you live, you could see if anyone in your family and friends would be willing to fly out to you.

    Bridal shows are everywhere - do you have anyone where you currently live who could attend with you?

    As for the bridal shower, we are driving to Philly which is about a 12 hour drive one way. I didn't want to miss out on having a bridal shower just because I live out of state. If you don't want to drive (I'm not sure how far Iowa is from Arizona) you could always just fly home but have your guests ship the gifts to where you live so you don't have to worry about logistics of getting those gifts home. That's an option we considered but decided on just driving.


    Hope that helps :)


  • You can totally do this! I planned my New York wedding from Louisiana. To reiterate what others have said, you can really take care of most research online and most communication over phone and email. I did it in 4 trips home, 4-6 months apart, when I would visit anyway (over the holidays and during the summer): 1) was to pick out the venue (far in advance); 2) next was to meet photographers, visit hotels, and set up craft projects; 3) the next to do hair/makeup trials, dress fitting, a tasting to finalize menu choices, and cake tasting; 4) and the last was my arrival a couple of weeks before the big day to do a final fitting and to tie up loose ends like assembling welcome bags, wrapping gifts. I definitely needed some on-the-ground support from family, so do NOT be afraid to ask for help! I hope this might be a useful template for you. Good luck - you've got this!
  • Definitely doable! We live in Dallas and are getting married in Arkansas (only about 5 hours, but still out of state). We've just made the absolute most out of every single trip to AR.
    One trip - visited every venue we were interested in, booked, met with caterers, decided on one, finalized menu.
    Second trip - booked DJ, tasted/ordered cake, met with multiple florists and booked one.
    Third trip - picked out linens, decided on placement of tables.

    Just call all your potential vendors a few weeks ahead of time and make sure you get appointments. I wouldn't plan to just walk-in anywhere. Fill your weekend trips up! We've been engaged almost a year and we've only taken 2 days off work for the wedding. All of our payments have been either made over the phone or online, so that hasn't been an issue. 

    Things we did here: hire a photographer, take engagement photos, buy my wedding dress, attend a bridal show, ordered invitations. We probably could have done those things in AR, but it worked out fine for us to do some things here and some there.  
  • Great advice so far from everyone. @lyndausvi also planned hers from very far away.

                                                                     

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  • jenna8984 said:
    Great advice so far from everyone. @lyndausvi also planned hers from very far away.

    Yes- @LyndaUSVI planned her wedding from the Caribbean!

    I planned my wedding in Australia from Colorado. It was a true DW- no family or friends to assist- and everything was done via e-mail. while I did not have a traditional wedding in any sense, it still turned out perfectly!

     







  • It's definitely doable! I am currently planning my wedding from about 1500 km away. My little sister lives in the same city as the wedding and was able to check out the venue we hired. She took videos so that helped a lot. Our venue also has a wedding package so look for that. They take care of all our setup and everything, and even have our centrepieces in the package.
    The majority of our planning has been by email and using Google. I got my dress where I live without my mom but I was able to FaceTime my parents from the store so they could see my final 2 picks.
    We are visiting the location next week and have appointments with all our vendors to take care of all the details we need to do in person. It is expensive to fly from our current city so we will only do this once.
    As long as you are organized, you can do it :)
  • I wish I had some great advice for you but I am stressed over the same issue.  I look forward to hearing others advice on this as there are others of us in the same boat.  Planning for an area that I do not live in or “really now” is mind blowing.

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