This blog post comes from my lovely friend, Brittney! She and Mike were living in Nashville when they planned their Gainesville wedding!

First off, yayy! You’re engaged/betrothed/affianced!

Second off, if you don’t know what you’re getting into with planning a wedding- get a wedding book or start a wedding binder and visit Pinterest sparingly. As a destination bride, you’ll do a lot of the same planning as local brides with some minor adjustments to recommended timelines and hiring vendors.  Bumps in the road will happen so, when planning a long distance or destination wedding, you and your future spouse have got to pace yourselves, stay organized and have a support system that reminds you what you’re doing this for in the first place.

Pick Your Location

When it comes to traveling to a location, review and shop the seasons of travel to avoid price hikes and unpleasant local weather. The Farmer’s Almanac is really as useful as they say it is. Why plan nuptials during monsoons in Hawaii or blizzards in Canada?

Michael and I live in Nashville, TN while most of our nears-and-dears live in Florida. Travel doesn’t work well for very many people in our family which was why we had to relocate our wedding from our backyard to somewhere accessible for most everyone. It was difficult to get a location figured out with large families so we limited our choices to places we had been together before. Mike had been to a few weddings in our chosen location and so he took lead on finding us a venue.  In the meantime, we stalked social media pages for photos of the area in different times of the year, asked for references, went through pages on bridal websites, and read many reviews to get a sense of what exactly was needed from a location and what our guests needed as well for their traveling mercies. Great scenery, proximity of local attractions and hotels ended up being our top three needs for ourselves and our guests.

Limit Your Vendors

Michael and I had four vendors for our ceremony and reception: our venue, our videographer, our photographer, and our DJ. Our venue was an all-in-one site that catered and coordinated all of the rentals for us. It was slightly more expensive but it was great not having to incorporate eight or nine vendors into our timeline preparations for the big day.

In addition to the usual suspects for the big day, I had booked hair and makeup with local artists but wasn’t able to get to meet them until the week of the wedding. Many hotels offer spa and beauty treatments so be sure to ask – it was my splurge. I also had some very creative and crafty friends who were able to work on decorating while key members of the bridal party were getting ready for the big day.

Travel For You & For Your Guests

When planning a destination location wedding, there will be a larger than you’re expecting amount of people not able to attend due to their everyday lives. You’ll have to remind yourselves that it has nothing to do with you two nor is it your responsibility to book for them. The exception to that rule is your grandparents.

Key ingredients to ensure your guests are excited include guaranteed hotel blocks (two hotels sufficed for us) and a small gift basket is also amazingly helpful in making them feel welcome in a place they probably haven’t visited before. If you can’t swing that in your budget, definitely consider making a quick tour guide for your guests that can be handed out at check in.

Also think about your honeymoon travel after the wedding. Morning flights are very rough. And if you’ve got a rental, that’s an extra step. Getting your mementos and decorations back to their temporary home is something to think about. You should know that not everything you use for your wedding (anything glittered or spray painted glass jars especially) should live in the car for the duration of your stay. I recommend building a few dollars in your budget for shipping things back home or gas money for the friend who is taking them back for you.  Michael and I drove down to Florida so we’d have a car for our honeymoon (it started the Monday after our wedding in South Carolina) and our travel back to Nashville. The car was so packed that our advice board didn’t make it, plus our clothes (wedding and regular) barely fit in the backseat & trunk space. Shipping items down in advance would have been extremely wise and money well spent.

Little Things We Learned on the Way

Try to get to your venue and location at least once before your big day. Take consideration of time zones when scheduling appointments. Do have “Save the Dates.” Send out your invitations early. Invite whomever you want to because those that are meant to be there will be there. Ask for help with planning. Trust the people you have around you. Your crew has fantastic instincts and they know your goals.

Second Most Importantly

Also remember that some things may go haywire even though everyone is on “vacation” so make a backup plan. For instance, on our big day, there was a manhunt that closed the major highways and backroads into our location and it rained a lot. We didn’t know what to do but the show found a way to go on because we trusted our amazing vendors to help us make decisions based on their experiences.

Most Importantly

The wedding is one single, stand alone day with your friends and family. Don’t feel like you two have to prove anything other than that to remind people you two are doing this for love; it is the beginning of your story as spouses.