Congratulations on your engagement and your choice to hold a fabulous travel destination wedding for all your family and friends somewhere lovely, tropical, and distant. The majority of guests are very excited about the invitation, even when they have never travelled very far. The catch is, you have a duty to create your guests’ trip both planning and implementing ensuring it is as easy effortless as possible.
This appears to be a major commitment, but it is simple to accomplish, with some good research and planning, as well as supplying guests with the right tools. In case you’ve got a wedding planner, then they ought to supply you with something to send to guests. But if you are doing it independently you’ve got a little homework to do.
I don’t advise becoming involved in group travel packages and with travel agents unless you’ve got a very good, dependable agent you have worked together with before. It may be a nightmare. If your guests wish to use a travel agent, they will. Just do not place yourself in the centre of that. All you need to do is follow the following five steps below to make everything your guests actually need:
- Speak to the two sets of parents about your choice to have a destination wedding and where you will hold it. If they are helping cover the festivities, then you need to allow them to have a say. If you are paying for the entire thing, you are able to introduce it as a done deal. Nonetheless, it’s very important to tell them what is happening as soon as possible in order that they could program their own lives and prepare for the big event. Ensure the most important people in your lives will have the ability to go to the destination which you have selected before you create the commitment and begin the upcoming actions.
- You have to send a Save-the-Date to the finalised invitation list when you can, even two years outside is fine! Do it when you have signed the contract with your wedding planner. The earlier the better, anyplace inside the 24-month mark. The majority of your guests will need to take off vacation days from work. Many will have to create childcare arrangements. Be considerate as possible and inform them the dates of your wedding day once they are confirmed. All you have to inform them is your wedding date and in which you are getting married, using a notation that a travelling information package will follow along with your wedding site details. Knowing the date will allow you to also pre-book other services such as wedding photos with your preferred award winning wedding photography company.
- Produce a complete travel advice package to send to your guests. Do not simply post the info on your own wedding site since, frankly, most individuals do not actually look at these till they are desperate for information at the last moment. Produce a tailored personalised package and inform them exactly what airports to fly into, and car rental recommendations, and the length of time they could expect the trip to take. Make hotel recommendations depending on the wedding venue you have selected, and supply many different price-points for guests to choose from. A lot of your guests will turn your destination wedding weekend in their very own holiday with side excursions before or after your wedding.
- Send a newsletter out to your guests that replied they are attending one month before the day. This newsletter could be funny or serious but should consist of final itinerary advice which permits apparel planning, and extra details regarding actions they may be interested in reserving during free time in their excursion. It must include contact info for the wedding couple, or their wedding planner, in case guests have problems travelling.
- Compose a detailed welcome correspondence to greet everyone at the destination. I suggest placing these in the welcome bags, together with maps, local books, menus, coupons and anything other small goodies you want to add. Maybe a voucher for facials at the resort or some small gifts. The welcome letter ought to have hints concerning the destination, the best way to get about, overall security, emergency telephone numbers, along with a last schedule of events. Provide contact information to your wedding planner to ensure they can reach you if they are missing or have a pressing issue. You can not place the information a lot of areas!
When everyone arrives, the program of events at the welcome correspondence must kick in and get everyone where they are supposed to be. But you have to be ready for calls from individuals who did not bother to see this, or by friends and family who’d easily get lost. Once the whole thing is over go reward yourself with soothing muscle relaxants for all the hard work.
