Strongly Thinking Destination, but so many Questions..HELP!

msphil32

Hey ladies!!!

I am sure there is a specific place to go to ask questions and possibly on another board. However, I know that what you all may have to offer would be sincere and extremely helpful. My FH and I are wanting to do a destination wedding. We have yet to set an actual date, but I am thinking April 7, 2012. We still want small and intimate, affordable, beautiful, of course. If you are planning or have had a destination wedding, where are you or have you gone? How many people would be ideal? Did you have to go there first or did you go by word of mouth for the coordinator situation? Were you able to reduce costs significantly this way? Were you able to get exactly what you wanted as far as decor, theme, etc was concerned? Many questions, but if anyone has any info, please share. We are trying to keep the costs down in efforts to have money for our home, new cars, things of that nature, but without having to sacrifice too much on our special day.
Again, I do appreciate any information given!!
Thanks!

JloveB

there is the destination board, a lot of the girls on there are okay, they seems to be limited to most having wedding on beaches though..

that sucks for brides doing a DW anywhere else....  As far as reducing cost...I don't think so, a lot of the girls still spend the same things on their guest as they would with an at home wedding and most do an at home reception later, so I don't think they save too much. 

Your best bet if saving money is to look for places in Mexico or the Caribbean at all inclusive resort, your guest will have to pay more than usual to go to your wedding but they will enjoy the vacation they receive out of it. 

Also most go with finding a Travel Agent to help with all the details. 

Me and FI were originally going to have a wedding in cali where we live but between his friends and family, and his need to invite the world we would have had 300 + for a wedding if you included my family, so in a way to cut the list we were going to do destination. (50 % of our guest were already guest from out of town so we just figured it was right to make them all travel)


I wanted Maui...never been but I asked co-workers who grew up in Hawaii and those who visit every year question plus I went to the gov. site and requested information from the tourism board (which was very helpful), FI complained that some of his friends (the ones who have wrong priorities in life when it comes to spending money couldn't make it...) so me being so over him complaining that it was the anti wedding..I change the location to Aspen, CO,

which is in between most of my family and friends and his...meaning everyone has to travel, it is expensive but not as costly as Hawaii....

 One thing I learn is to go to the city or location's government site....they have lots of information, find the person to contact for travel to that area (usually under tourism on their government page) hey will do all the work with providing hotels, wedding planners, florist, and anything else you need, they are part of the tourism board for a reason, they know the best of the best that makes their city look good, they won't recommend a business because of some underlying deal like some travel agent might do.   

First decided what type of destination you want..are you a beach person or do you enjoy the city more, find a place that you've never been too...

if you are trying to save money, I think you should probably go the all inclusive route, for DW it is probably best to invite no more than 30 people, 50 at the most because most hotels that have packages for wedding for inclusive packages tend accommodate that amount before the number start to add up.  In the end, the smaller your wedding the less it should cost. 

desi2002

i havent looked into DW... but I know sandals offers it. HTH

wallacje

I think it depends on where you go and if the people you want to be there the most can afford to go.  I was MOH in a DW in Jamaica last year, they did all inclusive for the guests which is great for individual stuff but when it came to the RD and the actual wedding reception they had a lot of people come (98 attended), they had to pay per plate for everyone over the "included" amount, which would differ depending on your package and the hotel. 

I wanted a "beach wedding" because they seem more intimate to me, but FI said his family more than likely couldn't afford to go, so we changed to a location, that is still a destination wedding but in the states.  Las Vegas for us was the second choice, we both love Vegas and our families were super excited about it.

I would do a comparison of what you can do at home and once you decide on a location what you can do there first, well after you set the budget.  Also talk to your family or the people you want to be there the most and see if its something they can do if given enough notice.

 If you go international I highly recommend a travel agent, it helped my friend keep track of who was actually coming because we all had to book and pay the TA (they did offer payment plans for folks too).  Plus they may be able to get you room rate discounts or discounts on airfare for group booking.

Also it depends too on what kind of wedding you want, we wanted to have a big party, so that's what we are doing, others may not want that and there are venues in Vegas that can accomodate those too.

Where are you or have you gone? Las Vegas

How many people would be ideal? 100 guests invited

Did you have to go there first or did you go by word of mouth for the coordinator situation? We booked site unseen though.  Both places that we are using for ceremony and reception come with a coordinator to handle all the details.  We went by reviews from TK, WeddingBee, Google on everything we booked.  We took 4 scouting trips between the 2 of us, we were going for other things so we stopped by Caesars to see the garden and meet the coordinator and also met with our photographer and DJ.  Haven't met the reception coordinator yet, but she's been good to work with over the phone and via email.

Were you able to reduce costs significantly this way? For us it was cheaper to go to Las Vegas than to do it in Colorado, maybe 40% less.  We are having a ceremony and 4 hour reception, everything we would have done in CO.  There are definitely things that regardless of where you are you would pay more for, such as photographer, venue, flowers, etc..

Were you able to get exactly what you wanted as far as decor, theme, etc was concerned?  We have been able to get mostly everything we wanted, few things we had to compromise on.  Decor, well a ballroom is a ballroom, they all look the same to me rather in a restaurant or a hotel, so you would have to see pictures to decide if the colors of the room worked with your colors.  We don't have a theme, never fully grasped the concept of that, but maybe your them would be where you are going, so you would get all beachy stuff if you are doing a beach wedding and vice versa.  We don't really have to entertain the guests if they come early or stay after the wedding because it's Vegas, if you can't find some thing to entertain yourself then you should just go home.

One thing that surprised me was how many people get married in a given day, Caesars has close to 50 weddings on certain days and holidays between all the chapels and gardens, maybe more, that's totally crazy to me.

Sorry its long.

HTH

msphil32

Wow! Thank you all so very much. Every bit of information was extremely helpful and once we have narrowed down the budget, I know I will have a much better idea! Neither one of us wants more than 50 attendees and the ONLY way I think we could do this is to go the destination route. Thanks again and anything else you all may think of later, please let me know!

Peace&Blessings!!!