Traveling Our Purdy World

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Imagine getting married on the beach overlooking the beautiful blue water, steel drum player playing Caribbean sounds in the background, all your closest family and friends watching from their seats with sand in between their toes – this is exactly how Sean and I’s wedding was – and we loved every minute of it!

Wedding Planning

Selecting Wedding Date

You’re wedding date is one of those few dates that you will remember forever. Selecting the right date is important. Many times destination weddings do not occur on the weekend as most of the time your friends and family will be driving, flying, or even taking a train to your destination. With this said, selecting a wedding during the weekday is not out of the question (and can possibly save you some money).

Wedding Location

I cannot stress this enough – pick a location that means something to you! This does not just apply to destination weddings, but to all weddings. Don’t just select a location because it is close to home, cheap, or has availability. Haven’t you heard the saying that “good things come to those who wait”? I know Sean and I struggled to try to find a location that accommodated to everyone meanwhile making us suffer and not get what we wanted. In the end, we said heck with it, and threw out everyone’s ideas and went with what we wanted – a destination wedding in the Outer Banks!

Wedding Shows

Depending on where you decide to get married, you may want to attend wedding shows either at your destination or where you live.

If you travel to your destination for their wedding shows, you can meet vendors (site, officiant, food, flowers, etc.), tour venues, and even book vendors. Attending wedding shows at your destination can be so valuable!

Along with attending wedding shows at your destination, you should also attend local wedding shows. While you cannot meet potential vendors for your destination wedding, you still can use this time to gather inspiration, meet stationary vendors (invitations, place cards, etc.), and even win prizes (gift cards, honeymoons, dresses, etc.)

Dress

Don’t just select any dress off the rack – try to really tailor your dress to the location you will be getting married at. If you are getting married on the beach, try to find a dress that reminds you of the beach, whereas; if you are getting married in Europe, try to find a dress that is a little European! The world is too big to settle on just a plain dress that anyone can have.

Guests

While you may want all your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, acquaintances, etc. to come to your wedding. Deciding to have a destination wedding can cause your attendee list to shrink because:

• Destination weddings require a lot from the attendee — time off from work and normal life, travel time, and sometimes a lot of money to be spent. Sometimes this is not feasible for the attendee so you either invite them knowing they will not come or invite them and make them feel less because they cannot afford the trip.
• Destination weddings are typically smaller. You usually invite just your close family and friends, not all 500 people you would love to come.
• While destination weddings can be cheaper, they can also be more expensive. Sometimes families or the bride and groom opt to pay for some attendees expenses to come to the wedding obviously you cant do this for everyone – so be selective.

It’s important to remember that sometimes when families go on vacations (this may end up being some attendees vacations) they bring extra people – the 18 year old daughters boyfriend, someone’s granddaughter, a friend, etc. It is important to keep this in mind because your guest count may go up in size. If Sarah is bringing her niece, you need to account for this extra person.

Children will be coming to the destination wedding. If you do not want them to cry during your ceremony, be on your best friends hip the whole time, eat your expensive prime rib, or run around like kids do – plan in advance. We hired a babysitting company for the day/evening of our wedding and it was AH-MAZING! I know many parents loved being able to drop their kids off and have a worry-free evening! If you do decide to go this route or if you allow kids at your wedding, PLEASE make sure you have activities for the kids to do (coloring books, tv, games, etc.).

Décor

While its really fun to look at (and buy) wedding décor, when you are having a destination wedding, less is more. Many times your attendees are just happy to be invited and be there. Yes you need the basics – tablecloths, napkins, an arbor of some sort, chairs, etc. but keep the table décor to a minimum. Also, if you want to make your guests feel special, you can make personalized place settings that they can take home with them, like below:

Also, while it may seem like a good idea to buy everything brand new and then sell it to all the brides later on — sometimes what you think will sell instantly does not! Take this from experience, people do not usually want your leftovers – they want everything new for their special day much like you do. This is not always the case, but most of the time it is! It might be better to rent some of the items instead of buying them. Also, remember you need to take all of this décor to your destination and then home afterward, and then you need to store it until you sell it – so do not go overboard.

Also, do not splurge on flowers! We opted not to spend thousands (yes, thousands) on a professional flower person and instead bought some at the local grocery store. Although they were cheap (about $20 a vase), we still didn’t know what to do with them after the big day… We had them on every table in our house, gave them to people, and STILL had too many. They all ended up going in the trash. Instead of putting them in the garbage, if we were ever to buy this many flowers again, we would donate them to the local hospital or nursing home – think smart! Another fun thing you can do for décor is to buy stuff that you would want in your home. We opted to buy a lot of beach décor (because that’s what we like) but also knew that we could use it to decorate our house with later. Again, think smart and how you can repurpose items.

Activities

Make sure there are activities for your guests because no one likes to just sit at a table and look at each other! Think outside the box – we had cornhole boards, yard games, a slushy maker, jello shots, glow necklaces, etc.

Stationary

Save The Dates

As you are planning a destination wedding that requires a lot of extra work on the attendees part, you will need to send Save The Date notices well in advance! The sooner you can send them the better.

Invitations

Don’t just buy regular invitations, instead buy invitations that are unique and informative. We opted to hire a professional lady who makes stationary and it was worth it. We created booklet type invitations that listed what to do in the area, where to stay, what the attendees need to know, etc. I think it was well worth it for the attendees to have this information handy. You may be thinking, well that’s why we are creating a wedding website…. well my friend, we also did that, and no one visited the website! I spent SO much time and effort putting together that website on the Knot and it was an epic fail because no one went to it. If you can find a way to get your attendees to go to the website, then great for you, because it did not work for me or some of my friends.

Program Fans

Imagine a 100 degree day sitting under the direct sun… doesn’t sound good does it? Well, if you have a beach destination wedding, this may be your future (or it could turn out absolutely beautiful). Something that your guests will appreciate is if you make your programs as fans. This way the guests can try to cool off as they are baking in the sun.

Thank You Cards

After your big day, make sure you send Thank You Cards to the guests who attended your wedding or sent you a gift. You need to do this very soon after your wedding.

Registry

Create multiple wedding registries. There is a really cool website where you can request honeymoon adventures, gift cards, excursions, hotel rooms, etc. Then there is the ever so-faithful, Amazon, which has anything you can think of. Brides and grooms will receive the following key benefits:

• Up to 20% completion gift off most products on Amazon
• World’s largest selection
• Amazon’s reliable fast shipping
• World class customer service
• It’s universal – add items from other websites with the universal button
• Fast, free shipping – Free shipping on orders over $25 or fast, FREE delivery on millions of items with Prime.

Create an Amazon Wedding Registry

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Email: travelingourpurdyworld@gmail.com