First off, I’m going to start by saying if you’re thinking about having a destination wedding you should absolutely do it. It’s really the only time you will be on a “vacation” with all of your closest family and friends. Your wedding day goes in the blink of an eye, and having a destination wedding allows for some quality time for your loved ones — giving you the chance to really savor this once in a lifetime moment.
Four years ago Michael and I said our I Do’s on the enchanting beaches of Tulum, Mexico. Having a destination wedding was a no-brainer for us, although we each had different reasons. I’ve always wanted an intimate wedding and being Persian I knew the only way I could achieve that was to travel across the country. Had we gotten married in our hometown of Southern California I would’ve had to invite everyone from third cousins to my grandmother’s eyebrow lady. As for Michael, he rightfully assumed far away place means less people, less people means less money.
Now that I shared why we decided to have a destination wedding let’s get into major takeaways and what I would do over:
Be Patient with Emails
Not everyone is glued to their phones and computers the way we are in the U.S. This was something that took quite a bit of adjustment on my part. On average it would take about 2 days for me to receive an email reply. Thankfully the closer we got to the big day the more responsive everyone was.
Be Hospitable
Your family and friends have traveled a longways to celebrate this special occasion with you. It’s a nice touch to include welcome bags in each room filled with local snacks, water, hang over pills etc. My wedding planner suggested that we host a “Sunset Welcome Party” the day guests arrived which was a great idea. It gave everyone a chance to mingle and get to know each other over pitchers of margaritas and really helped set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
Be Sure To Invite All Guests to the Wedding Related Events
Ordinarily something like a rehearsal dinner is for the bridal party and immediate family, however, when you have people fly across the country then the gracious thing to do is include them in all wedding related festivities. And just because you are inviting all your guests doesn’t mean that it will cost you an arm and a leg. Check out the local restaurants in the area and compare quotes. Opt for a family style dinner or a taco bar instead of a seated dinner. It will save you money and it gives all your guests another chance before the wedding to hang out and get to know each other better.
Wedding Dress is Overrated
This may be an unpopular opinion but the most glaring takeaway I had from my wedding was just how overrated (and overpriced) a wedding dress really is. And maybe this felt more so the case for me because I ended up changing out of my dress after a few hours. Long story short, I was uncomfortable AF, the humidity was causing my sticky bra to slip off, and I really just wanted to dance my ass off without having to constantly re-adjust myself. So if you are having your wedding somewhere with tropical weather be mindful of the dress you choose. Opt for something very light and airy, minimal beading, no boning.
My mom had offered me her old wedding dress but I thought her dress would be too conservative for a beach wedding. Looking back now, it would have been a lot cheaper and a million times more sentimental had I taken her dress and made the necessary alterations to it.
Opt for Consumption Bar
A consumption bar is when you are charged a price per drink consumed at your event. Each drink has a price and you pay for what your guests actually drink vs an open bar which is a flat fee you pay per person per hour. We easily saved at least $5k by going the consumption bar route. After tax and service charge, our venue would have charged us $35 per person/per hour for open bar, which over the course 6+ hours would have come out to a pretty penny. Take into account the guests attending your wedding. How many are non-drinkers or very light drinkers? You will likely have diverse mix of guests and some may have 8 drinks that night, while others may have none. In the majority of cases, if you go the consumption bar route you will end up saving money.
Create A Music Playlist for the DJ or Band
Music will make or break your wedding. Be sure you are very specific with the songs you want you played. The best way is to create a playlist you can give to your DJ and that way they will also get a really good understanding of the type of music and vibe you’re going for. I made sure my playlist included everything from my favorite top 40 hits at the time, EDM, 90s hip-hop, oldies, sing-along songs. Also, this should go without saying but make sure your DJ transitions the songs into each other, rather than playing a song in it’s entirety before moving on to the next song. People get over a song after a couple minutes and the best way to keep the party going is by playing back to back killer songs. A good DJ is one that makes it hard for your guests to stop dancing.
We created our wedding website through Riley & Grey which is advertised as a “luxury” wedding website builder. They have beautiful, unique templates but my favorite feature was the customizable RSVP form which allowed me to include an option for song requests. I made sure to include most of the songs my guests requested on the playlist as well!
Be Flexible
Something will probably go wrong at some point and the best thing you can do is to roll with it. My wedding arch and bouquet ended up looking different than what I had approved, but there’s no point in stressing out over something that is already a done deal. We also had planned a Persian wedding ceremony which involved displaying a table full of symbolic items under the wedding arch. Well, it ended up being too windy and the items kept flying off the table so my wedding planner had to improvise. We had to split up the ceremonies and had our Persian portion first on the upper deck of the hotel. It wasn’t ideal but it worked.
Leave Your (soon to be) Husband Out of it
Most men do not care about all the details that go into a wedding. And I promise you he will get annoyed if you ask for his input on every little detail, and you will get annoyed at him not caring as much as you do. Ask him what the most important elements of the wedding are to him and you two can do the planning together on those. Michael didn’t care about any of the planning and just wanted to know where to be, what time, and what to wear, haha.
Husbands are good for putting things in perspective though. I remember agonizing over the details of the dinner tables and Michael said something to me that completely changed my frame of thought. He said to me,
“None of our guests will care what color napkins you pick, nor will they remember. Just make sure we have drinks flowing and great music, the rest will take care of itself.”
And he was right.
Scroll to see some of our favorite wedding day photos…
