Planning a long-distance wedding?

Re: Planning a long-distance wedding?

• lodonnell616 member

  

  May 2013

  I'm planning mine from 6000 miles away, we marry in 29 days and we'll be engaged for 18 months.  If you leave enough time to organize and make recon trips to do the planning it is totally manageable. 
  
  Congrats and good luck!

  

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• MayberryAfterMidnight member

  

  May 2013 edited May 2013

  I thought my wedding was long-distance (we're in New Jersey, getting married at my parents' home in VA), but I just googled it and it's only about 400 miles! Still, I think generally the logistics are similar and it can definitely be done. I think the two most important things for planning a long-distance wedding are that you are able to make at least a couple trips back and forth to the location and also that you have someone who lives nearby (in your case, your mom). It doesn't mean that your mom has to do extensive planning, but it's really helpful to have someone close to be able to visit vendors and stop by and take care of things when you can't. For example, my brother is officiating at our wedding and we needed to get information from the town's courthouse on getting him approved. Unfortunately, the courthouse is only open M-F, and I'm only able to go home to VA on weekends. So my dad was able to stop by and talk to the clerk for me. Our florist also wanted to visit our venue to get a feel for the place, and my parents were able to meet with her during the week because I couldn't get home. Honestly, though, so much is done on email and online these days that planning a long-distance wedding isn't too, too bad. So definitely don't let distance be your only deciding factor. I will be honest that I'm not sure I could've done it if I didn't have my parents close by there to help, but I have been the one doing the majority of the planning - they just help out when I ask. Good luck!

  

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• abliss13

  

  May 2013

  I just got engaged yesterday, 5/2/13, and we are planning on having our wedding location in South Carolina - we live in Kansas. The reason for this is because all of my family lives in SC, and his lives in Michigan. 

  
  

  We had already planned a weeks vacation to SC to visit family in July, so now we'll just add some time during vacation to scout out venues and those types of things and get an idea of what we want while we are in town. I also have plans to visit throughout the year which I do regularly. I'll be putting a lot of trust in my cousin, aunt and grandma to help me out with the details but I don't foresee any major problems - I know what I want/like, I just need to guide them from a distance with helping to secure things.

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• kerbohl member

  

  May 2013 edited May 2013

  6000 miles has me beat - I'm planning a wedding from 3000 miles away.  Fortunately my FI and my family lives in the area where I am getting married, so it is good to have someone there to rely on to look at places and figure things out.  But even then, email is a great way to get things done.  Making some trips down is important, and scheduling every to get done in those trips is also huge.  I ended up doing my wedding planning in spurts - so before I left to move 3000 miles away, we went venue shopping, photographer shopping, and I went dress shopping.  And now I wait until my next visit in September to go BM dress shopping and finalizing a caterer that I have only contacted through email and a brief visit. 
  
  Long distance planning is very possible - good luck!

  
  

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• BulgariHeart member

  

  May 2013

  It's not hard, worry not, it will be just as fun as planning locally, just pick wisely and you'll be fine. We planned our non beach DW in 11 months, from halfway around the world and with the help of the on-site wedding coordinators. That's probably my main advice, to opt for a venue that offers top-notch coordinators and service so that you can rely on them to make everything run smoothly. We knew we weren't going to be able to pay personal visits, meet with vendors, taste food and cakes etc so instead of hiring many outside vendors based on reviews and having to follow up on each we decided to just go with the venue's different in-house departments. Flowers, décor, food, cake, entertainment, video and so on all came from the venue, orchestrated by the coordinators who executed our vision to a tee. It wasn't the cheapest option but the peace of mind was priceless and luckily everyone delivered beyond our expectations. Try to keep your vendors count to a minimum in order to minimize mishaps. Read contracts carefully, put every communication in writing and share lots of detailed inspiration photos. Happy planning!

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