destination weddings..info, ideas, experiences

[trulyinlove]

Date: 11/23/2007 12:19:46 PM
Author:galleygal
Hello, I was just wondering if anyone has any info or experiences on destination weddings? Where did you go? How was the experience? Approx. how much did it cost (I hope you don''t mind sharing)? I''m in the very very early stages of planning. I keep having thoughts against a tradional wedding. I want the experience to be more intimate with my F. I don''t like having the spotlight on me and I can''t seem to bring myself to spend so much money on one day. Does anyone else feel the same way? I would love to hear your suggestions, ideas, or experiences. Thanks!

Hey! I dont know if anyone has told you or not but you need to check with a travel agent. My husband and I were going to go to Australia to get married but the agent said that in some places your marriage will not transfer to the United States so therefore you wont be leagally married you would have to have a ceremony there and really get married in the US. Also another problem they warned us about is that it may take you several months to get your marriage license back which you need to have in order to change your name. I hope it all works out for you and your fiance!!! God Bless!

 

[NewEnglandLady]

I started planning a destination wedding in Hawaii before we settled on the wedding we actually had. The idea was to rent a large house for his and my immediate family. Total # of guests would be 11 adults, 5 kids. We were going to get married on the beach in front of the house at sunset, then we''d all go to a nice restaurant for dinner and that was it!

The house rental was the most, it was going to be about $11,000 for the whole week (though it was nice because everybody''s accommodations were taken care of all week long). We''d budgeted about $2 - $3k for dinner, $2k for plane tickets, $2k for groceries, car rental, daily activities, etc., The dress, alterations, wedding bands, etc. brought us up to our budget: around $22k.

We ended up not having a Hawaiian wedding because D wanted to include our aunts, uncles and cousins. But we kept the idea and our guest list only grew to 38. We live in Boston, so we rented a large residence on the ocean where my family could stay for the whole week (my family is from the midwest), so we still had the big family dinners, the daily activities, etc. We kept thet budget, but ended up coming in way under budget. Now we''re using the money we saved to take a nice 10-day vacation to Hawaii. We also ended up skipping the restaurant idea and instead had a nice clambake catered in.

I still sometimes wish we''d done the destination thing, but am also glad that our aunts and uncles could be a part of the day.

 

[onedrop]

galleygal: I am so sorry I am just getting back to you. Been busy these last weeks. In any case, we got married in the USVI, St. Croix at The Buccaneer Resort. We decided on this place because we could have an island feel, and because they had wedding packages and at the time you didn''t need a passport to travel there. I didn''t want to have to do a lot of planning myself and the wedding planners there were very attentive and helpful. We LOVED every minute of it and so did our guests.