As you’ve probably gathered, I am a bit of
an ambassador for Weddings abroad , but I understand the reservations some may
have when it comes to the Happiest Day of your life, getting married.
- What if something goes wrong?
- What if we get there and nothing is
arranged?
- What if nobody wants to come?
Well if you are the kind of person who
predominantly deals with ‘What if’s’ then maybe you should consider a nice
simple marriage registration at your local council offices. It will probably
only cost you as much as a KFC Family Feast and that includes the taxi fare.
Perfect!
If on the other hand you are not such a
paranoid android then what is wrong with a nice, traditional Wedding at home.
Well to be completely honest, there is nothing wrong with it, nothing at all.
It just means you’re a bit boring and maybe stuck in a 20th Century
time warp. Only joking!
Look, if you have a very large family and /
or it is not possible for some of them
to travel to an overseas wedding destination, then your options are limited and
a grand old White Wedding can be very nice. (Depending on where you live). In
situations where family or friends prevent you from getting married abroad,
sometimes it’s just as good to plan something out of town. Lets face it,
regardless of where you live in the world, beauty can always be found within a
fairly short a drive and where there is beauty, you can bet someone is hosting
weddings.
One of the major drawbacks of a wedding at
home for many of us is simply cost.
For some odd reason, a wedding at your
local church or chapel can cost more than a NASA Satellite Launch. What I find
interesting though, is that your home country most likely has its very own Cool
and Funky Destination Wedding Industry, which can aggressively compete price-wise
with a Tradition Home Wedding and still be for all intent and purpose, a
Destination Wedding.
What I am trying to say is, if you really
do not want to get the passports out, or mess around with foreign legalities, you might be surprised what can be found on
your doorstep.
If you are from the USA, you are spoiled
for choice, but being as large as the USA is, a flight may still be required.
Las Vegas is the obvious choice, but Grand
Canyon and Hawaii are also big players in the USA.
The UK has a multitude of Castles, Pubs and
Manor Houses where an incredible wedding can be held, usually just a stone
throw from home.
The same goes for Canada, Australia and
anywhere else you may come from. There are often hidden gems just around the
corner.
So while a Destination Wedding
theoretically can be held without actually leaving your own country, for more
and more couples, it really is all about eloping to a Destination that is far,
far removed from your own reality.
As I touched upon earlier in the piece,
Passports and Legals can be a real drag when planning a wedding abroad,
especially when trying to arrange the families travel as well. That’s where
professional Destination Wedding Planners are worth their weight in gold.
The good ones will have there own Travel
Agency which allows them to arrange every aspect of the Destination Wedding
from Flights to Transfers, Guest Accommodation to Catering. The really good ones will offer competitive
rates and discounts on group booking too, that even your local Travel Agency
may struggle to compete with.
Dedicated
Overseas Wedding Planners will have contacts in a number of locations and
should be able to provide tried and tested Photographers, DJ’s., Wedding
Celebrants and so on.
[Beware the Destination Wedding Planner who
pushes you to one particular Destination. While it is great to be offered
alternative options that you may not have considered, if they are pushing hard
for just one destination, it is probably all they have access to or they are
simply looking at their own profit margin rather than your best interests. Not
necessarily a bad thing if you like the location but might get restricting as
the planning progresses].
The really, REALLY good ones may also be
able to look after the Wedding Legal Process in the Destination Country for you
as well, though some countries can be fairly tricky and don’t be surprised if
you are advised to do the legals at home and have the ceremony only at your
Wedding Destination. This is quite normal advice so don’t be scared away by it.
At the end of the day, a reputable Destination Wedding Planner is working to
make your life easier but ultimately the decisions are yours, as are the
consequences if you stray too far from the experts advice.
I’ll probably finish off by explaining the
difference between a Local Wedding Planner and Destination Wedding Planner.
A Local Wedding Planner is based at or is
close to the Location that you are staging the big day. They should have
unsurpassable local knowledge and access to local service at good rates. Make
sure you check them out first though and ensure they have a solid history and
reputation. Dealing with Planner overseas can get frustrating especially where
there are time differences, language barriers and high phone costs.
Email correspondence works for some Brides,
but not all. Make sure you know what works for you.
You will have to place a lot of trust place
in this person so I cannot stress enough, do your homework. I’m not trying to
scare you as there are some fantastic planners out there and truth be known,
even the big Destination Wedding Planners of the world, usually employee a local
planner at their Wedding Destinations to keep things running smooth.
Local Wedding Planners can be found with some
messing around in Google or Bing etc, but the easiest way to find a local
Wedding Planner is via the Wedsaway Destination Wedding Directory. It is the
one and only Global resource for finding Destination Wedding venues and service
providers anywhere in the world, from anywhere in the world and it has a very
rapidly growing index of businesses, many with reviews and Star Ratings.
If you are not the type to trust your
Wedding Day to an overseas stranger, then you will most likely sleep much
easier knowing you are dealing with someone from your own country or at the
very least who speaks the same language.
Once again, there are lots of such people
out there but it pays to do your homework, even if you do intend to let the
Destination Wedding planner do all the hard graft. There are a lot of amateurs out there, some with Travel Connections and some without. I would always recommend the one stop shop
solution so a Destination Wedding Planner with an in house Travel Agency keeps
everything neat and tidy. Plus as I said before, the big players can often get
group rates that the High Street Travel Agent will struggle to compete with.
Probably the best thing though is having
someone that you can call or email, anytime and get response that makes sense.
For many, this is priceless and makes the planning fee charged by the top
companies a small price to pay for such peace of mind.
Despite the amount of Overseas Wedding
Specialists out there, it would appear that most Western Countries have one
dominant force. This is easily proven in a simple Google search.
[Beware the Package Holiday Giants and
their McWedding Packages.
Many of the Supersized Travel Corporations
to whom we are all familiar with, have began a highly aggressive marketing
attack on the Destination Wedding industry. With the assistance of Search
Engines like Google, Bing and these companies massive advertising budgets, these Global Goliaths
have in a very short space of time shoved the genuine businesses out of sight.
Besides 3 or 4 of the biggest Destination Wedding Planners in the world, The
Search Engines have aided the Travel Corporations to remove them from first page searches in
Google, Yahoo, Bing and so on, so it’s worth checking page 2 and 3 when looking
for planners online, to avoid the drivel].
If you are in the USA and Canada www.destinationweddings.com are
undoubtedly the biggest and the most comprehensive. Catering for the North American Market
they are very strong in popular Destinations for American Brides, such as Caribbean and Hawaii. They are not quite
so strong as some of the competition for Asia and Europe, but don't underestimate these guys. They are big
players and have a very good reputation, so are certainly worth a look.
In the United Kingdom are Perfect Weddings
Abroad, who not surprisingly are an affiliate to Destination Weddings in the
USA. They have a great support network from their big brother but are up
against probably the most hostile competition from the aforementioned Package
Holiday Giants who dominate the UK Search Engines and media.
Australia and New Zealand have an abundance of Destination Wedding
Planners and have not been as badly affected by the Package Holiday invasion,
though some UK companies even appear top on the Australian search engines. Go Figure!
Australia is dominated by a couple of Destination Wedding Planners, but the most comprehensive and
significantly largest is Wedding Destinations
Surprisingly enough, they have one of the
largest Destination Portfolios in the world, yes even bigger than the Americans
and cannot be rivaled when it comes to Asia and Pacific Weddings. Such is their
influence within these regions, that Destination Wedding Couples from around the
world use their services for planning Thailand Weddings, Bali Weddings, Fiji Weddings and many more. They can found at www.weddingdestinations.com.au
So what have we learned?
Well, the choices are almost limitless and
how much of the planning you want to be involved with can be measures by
whether you use a Directory like Wedsaway and manage everything yourself, employ a Local Planner who you also manage yourself but will take care of
the on site arrangements or hire a Destination Wedding Planner and leave it all
to them to make your dream come true.
Or then again, there are the Local Council Registry
Offices!
