Back in the old days, a bride could plan the entire wedding all by herself. Today, things have become much more complicated. Not only are your friends and family living all over the world, the expectations for a wedding have gone up as well. And a destination wedding adds an additional layer of complexity.
Having to decide on a location, select a venue, block hotel rooms, and make travel arrangements on top of all the other responsibilities is not easy and needs a lot of time and dedication.
So Why Do Most Brides Try To Plan Their Weddings Alone?
Because they think that no one will do as good a job, or will care enough to do it exactly as they want it done. Others don’t feel comfortable asking people to lend a hand for an occasion that will consume so much time.
So these brides plan alone.
And yet they should not. The easiest path to failure for any destination wedding is to try to plan alone.
Why Planning Alone Is A Bad Idea?
A destination wedding is too intense a planning experience for one person to handle. As you will see below, the tasks involved are far too many for one person to organize.
And if you try to plan alone, you will inevitably forget to do something that is crucial to the wedding. It is at this point that you will realize that the work involved is too much.
Before you get to that point, let’s run through all the stuff that you will need to do to plan a successful destination wedding.
What You Will Need Help With
Planning a destination wedding involves a lot of coordination, planning, and follow-up. The following is a list of things that you should delegate to your family and/or the wedding party.
Remember that the responsibilities below are what is needed to be done before the wedding. There are additional responsibilities (Attendant duties) that need to be taken care of at the wedding as well.
- Communications with guests pre wedding
- Create and manage guest list with save the dates and invitations. Tracking invitations and RSVP’s
- Creating an agenda for the destination wedding
- Help create and maintain a wedding website.
- Help you research and design a wedding theme (decor, table top, floral, and lighting design)
- Help you shop for a wedding dress
- Someone to research airfare, hotels, wedding venues, ceremony locations
- Someone to help get group hotel rates and block hotel rooms
- Someone to help research qualified caterers, florists, makeup artists, photographers, and transportation.
- Someone to help research additional vendors like bakers (wedding cake), entertainment and an officiant.
- Plan the shower, and the bachelor/bachelorette party
- Help you research the local wedding laws, residency requirements
- Plan the honeymoon
- Organize a rehearsal dinner
- Design a seating plan
- Help you choose and ship supplies and favors
- Make travel arrangements for the entire wedding party
As you can imagine, the responsibilities above cannot be handled by one person alone. You will need help and lots of it.
Who Should Be Helping You?
Your family and your wedding party should step up to the plate here. The larger your wedding, the larger the wedding party is going to have to be.
Divide the tasks above as evenly as you can in terms of the amount of time it would take to complete and ask for volunteers among your wedding party first. Tasks that are left over should then to doled out to family (your mom, dad, sister, in-laws, aunts, uncles, etc.) based on priority.
But I Thought Planning A Destination Wedding Was Supposed To Be Hassle Free?
It can be, but you will have to either hire a wedding planner or get a wedding package at an all inclusive resort.
A wedding planner is worth every penny. They can take care of the wedding from start to finish without much help from you or your family. However, hiring one full time can be expensive.
The other hassle free option (and one that more and more brides are taking nowadays) is to book a wedding package at an all inclusive resort. Just about all of them offer a free wedding coordinator that will take care of your details, leaving you to simply buy a dress and show up.
Regardless of the method you choose, the goal is to have an enjoyable experience, not a stressful one.
In order to avoid turning into Bridezilla, you should actively seek out help and create a team of people that are willing to make your wedding a success. Having a team, however, is only half the battle. Now you have to learn to delegate as much as possible and then follow-up to ensure that things are going as planned.
What To Do Next?
Research some great locations for your destination wedding.