For those that had or are planning DWs

[onedrop]

How long in advance did you start planning? And when did you let those that you wanted to attend know about your plans? I am not formally engaged yet, but I am doing a bit of *thinking* about the type of wedding to have, before the actual proposal. I haven''t thought much down the road other than a possible DW, but I have been doing some web surfing and I am really liking the idea of going to Key West. This idea is in its infancy, but I thought I''d get some feedback from you all!

Thanks!!!

 

[Jaders731]

Hi Onedrop...

I am planning a destination wedding in Seaside Florida... March 31, 2007. We got engaged on July 26th, set a date by the middle of August and chose Seaside a couple days later...

We started telling everyone as soon as possible because we wanted as many people as possible to come.

Key West was also one of our choices for a DW.. and we found that it seemed like a beautiful place... Seaside Florida won for sentimental reasons.. and the town is just beautiful. if you arent stuck on Key West... maybe you could consider Seaside. One perk for Seaside... which helped us because we live out of the country right now, is that the Venue fees include the services of a Wedding planner. Which in the grand scheme of things, helps tremendously with planning. Maybe in your research, you should find out if there is a venue in Key West that would include the services of a planner. It really helps out a lot! Just an idea.

Good Luck!

 

[JessaJS]

I was planning a DW but ended up going the traditional route.
I signed up with Andrea from destinationweddings.com and she was wonderful. She worked to set a timeline and find hotels that fit with my budget and with the amenities I was looking for.

One thing to keep in mind - airline rates aren''t posted until something like 345 days ahead of time, so you can''t really plan too far in advance (more than a year, that is.) We had a hard time working around hurricane season and all that yucky stuff, but it''s totally possible to have a gorgeous DW!!

I was planning on doing STD''s with booking info approx 10 months in advance.

Good luck and keep us posted on plans and engagement!

 

[fisherofmengirly]

A good friend of mine at work is having a destination wedding (*by the way, it took me WAY TOO LONG to figure out what DW meant. Duh!*) in Jamaica on November 2nd. She originally was planning a wedding/wedding, but it grew into too much and was stressing her out. Her soon-to-be-husband gets a discount on vacation packages through his work, so they had to book early on. They had to have a number of guests locked in by late August or early September. She said the work for the wedding is all done; there is a wedding coordinator on the cruise and they have talked online and she''s picked everything already. She said it was less than two hours of chatting to get it all squared away.

I think a destination wedding can be really easy and fast to plan, or it can be really involved. Depends on what you want. Some are simple and intimate, some are huge and have just as many as would attend a traditional wedding nearby.

 

[Scooba]

I am planning a DW, I started doing extensive research on resorts and countries right after we got engaged in early May, we took a scouting trip to Mexico in July to see a couple of the resorts that we narrowed it down to, and in August we booked a resort and our date.

I think you should plan a DW asap since you will be asking for a significant chuck of time from your guests, letting them know earlier is obviously way better. I didn''t start researching resorts or visiting travel agents until after we were engaged though, I just felt like it would be weird, but once the ring was picked out and paid for and I was waiting for the proposal I let my family know that we were going to be planning a DW and what month it would be in since we have a small timeframe with FI''s job.

 

[anacgarcia]

my FI and I started talking about how it would be great to marry at the beach and stuff.. he gave me the ring 2 weeks ago, but we''ve been planning the wedding for 4 months now..

I started getting budget stimates from the hotels we liked.. then on july (1 year before our wedding date) we went to Cancun to close the deal, and went we went back we started telling people to plan their next summer vacations..

we wanted to tell people before because we''re planning on inviting 200-250 people..

 

[Scooba]

where is Cancun are you getting married Anny?

 

[anacgarcia]

In the hotel zone.. fiesta americana condesa hotel..
I''m from Mexico so i''m here if you need any help.. when are you getting married?

 

[onedrop]

Thanks for all of the tips and opinions! A destination wedding seems perfect for me for a lot of reasons, the main one being I don''t want to really have anything very big. In addition, I do not want to do a whole lot, just pick what I want and go from there. And I do feel most of the people that I want to be there will be there. I''ve kind of already started telling people my ideas so it won''t be a huge surprise when we are firm in our decision. We''ve already picked out and paid for the ring, so I am just waiting on the the proposal!

Jaders: I will check into Seaside. I have never heard of it. You gave me something to consider regarding finding a location that includes the wedding planner into the venue costs.

Based upon what everyone has said, I guess we need to do some real planning sooner rather than later. And send out Save-the-Dates pretty soon so people can plan.

I will definitely keep you all posted on the plans and decisions, and please do the same with your plans!!!

 

[firebirdgold]

We''re having our DW in Hawaii, but we''re only having our immediate family so my experience may not be relative. Both our wedding and my sister''s DW early this past summer shows that people really need to make plane reservations at least 5 months in advance. Particularly if people are using ff miles.

 

[onedrop]

Oh Hawaii sounds awesome Indie! I am assuming your new avatar is your wedding location. Looks fantastically tropical! I am going over to your update thread now, to check your progress.

And thanks for the tip on the filght reservations.

 

[Clarygrace]

Hello OneDrop!
DW was pretty much a given for us, the location itself was decided just after our engagement.
We''ll be celebrating in Chianti, Tuscany next year on Sep 1, 07 and we sent engagement announcements with a special reply card to our family/friends surveying whether they would be able to join us....and 35 said yes! I also have family in Italy, so our wedding will probably be about 60 or so.

In our planning we are scheduled to mail travel/info packets to our guests with airline/car/hotel reservation information, as well as sightseeing/excursion ideas. Those will go out right after the holidays so to give everyone plenty of time to make arrangements. Another idea we have is to start an email forum for our guests sometime over the summer, kind of a introduce yourself and share your plans forum, so everyone has a chance to meet/greet beforehand.

I will travel to Italy at least twice between now and the wedding (I travel a lot!) to take care of certain arrangements (the rest is by email/phone) and my family in Italy also helps with logistics on that end (invitation mailing, favors etc.)

Best of luck with your plans and try to stay sane, the details are incredible!

Ciao e auguri!