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Planning Basics for Your Wedding – Near or Far

By Our Friends at It'sAboutDetails.com, Jason Kimble (Editor in Chief) and Heather Kimble (Executive Editor/Creative Director)

Posted: October 30, 2012

Planning Basics for Your Wedding – Near or Far

 

Planning your big day can be overwhelming and lead to a ton of stress.  A wedding is one of the most important days in a person’s life.  It is supposed to be fun, joyful, and void of stress.  One of the easiest ways to make sure you have a great day that is stress free and fun for everyone is to have a great plan in place.  Here are some tips that can help you plan your big day to perfection, whether you are having your ceremony nearby or as a destination wedding.

Determine a budget

Probably one of the most important keys to having a successful, low stress wedding is to set your budget early.  This should be one of the first things you do.  Sit down with your fiancé and go over who will be paying for the wedding.  Will family be contributing?  If so, who and how much?  Is it just on the couple?  Once this is determined, pick a number that you are comfortable with.  Don’t shoot for the stars.  It is important to be realistic, so that you are not setting a number that is too high or too low.  And before you set the budget make sure you do your research.  There are a lot of tools available to help you determine the average cost of weddings for the area you are having it. 

Set a final guest list

The guest list is important and should be figured out pretty early in the planning stage.  One reason for this is the guest list size will help you determine the venue.  If you are having a large wedding, your venue needs to accommodate the crowd and not be undersized.  If you having a smaller wedding, if may be best not to use a space that is suited for 300 people as the intimate group will be overwhelmed by the space.  The other reason it is important is because of the budget piece.  If you assume you are having a certain number of guests and the count is inaccurate, you could throw off your budget by a significant amount of money.  Being off by just a mere $500 could be the difference of whether you opt for a special extra to complete your big day or not. 

Consider the Weather and Time of Year

When making your plan it is important to keep in mind the climate and time of year for the place the wedding is being held.  Nothing can be more embarrassing then planning a wedding in a tropical paradise only to find out it is hurricane season. Or if you are planning your wedding  outdoors, it may be good to know that the area you are having it in features high levels of heat and humidity at the particular time of year and that you and your guests may be uncomfortable if not dressed appropriately.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions

For most brides, this is the first time they have ever planned a wedding.  You aren’t expected to know everything.  Make use of all the resources available to you.  There are countless books, magazines, websites, blogs, and wedding professionals out there ready to impart all sorts of knowledge, tips, and inspiration to the willing couples.  There are many ideas out there and most of the questions you are asking have been asked before so the answers are readily available.

Prioritize food/entertainment/photography/videography

 It’s important to have priorities when planning your big day.  That way the most important things don’t fall to the wayside.  The things that are the biggest priority and deserve the most attention are the food, entertainment, photography, and videography.  The food and entertainment are important because they are the keys to ensuring that you and your guests have a great time at the celebration.  Without those two keys, you can’t really have a party.  The photography and videography are so important because they will be the keys to remembering your big day.  No matter what, you will always have them to look back on and remember the great time you had and the great people you spent that time with, even as time goes on.

Get organized

Most weddings are a pretty large undertaking and can the cost of it is usually pretty substantial.  When this kind of investment is involved, it is not a good idea to be flying by the seat of your pants.  Get a binder, get your hands on a good checklist, and get organized.  For example, when going to bridal shows and meeting lots of vendors, it is important to bring a pen and paper to take notes.  That way when you get home, you will remember which vendor was which and you can focus on contacting the ones you really liked.  Having to do double the work definitely makes the process even harder, so staying organized will help keep things running smoothly.

Take it step by step

When being faced with lots of decisions and an overwhelming number of things to consider; it can be very easy to get caught up in too many steps at once and that makes them harder to complete.  For example, if you are picking your invites, finish that step before working through your cake design.  Going in too many directions makes it easy for things to slip through the cracks or get overlooked. 

Give yourself enough time

As they say Rome wasn’t built in a day, and a project as big as a wedding can’t be planned in a day either.  Make sure you allow yourself enough to time to consider the options so that decisions are not made rashly and so that things don’t come down to the wire.  Cakes, dresses, food, invitations, etc all take time to create.  If the vendor doesn’t have a big enough time frame to execute the ideas, everyone ends up frustrated.  

 

Enjoy our guest blogger series brought to you by our friends at itsaboutdetails.com.  Take a look at their site for the latest in wedding planning, trends and ideas!  

 

Top Beach Destinations for Honeymoons

From Our Friends at Honeymoons INC

Posted: October 22, 2012

Top Beach Destinations for Honeymoons

Our Friends at Honeymoons Inc have used their expertise to develop a list of top Carribbean beaches for honeymoon Travel as part of our Guest Blogger series.  Enjoy learing more about these destinations and our registry partners!

One of the most frequent requests we get is for the ultimate beach. Often we hear, “The beach is our most important consideration”, “we’re all about the beach”, “we want sugar white sand and turquoise water”. So, we thought maybe we should share with you our top recommendations for great all inclusive resorts on the ultimate beaches.

1. Couples Swept Away and Sandals Negril are both located on 7 mile beach in Negril. Both are Couples only all inclusive resorts and are 2 of our most popular resorts in all of the Caribbean. This beach is great for long walks and swimming. And since Negril is on the west coast, you also get amazing sunsets. Don’t forget Beaches Negril also if you are looking for an all inclusive Jamaica wedding resort that takes all ages.

2. Sandals Emerald Bay in the Exumas is located on a beautiful crescent shape beach with the famous crystal clear water of Bahamas. Exuma is practically all limestone, so there is no dirt or silt to cloud the waters. You won’t find ocean water this clear anywhere else.

3. Secrets Maroma Beach and El Dorado Maroma are both located on the beach that the Travel Channel always lists as a top 10 beach in the world. El Dorado Maroma is more intimate, like the Corona commercial and Secrets has more amenities. Both resorts are adults only all inclusive resorts.

4. Sandals Grande Antigua is located on Dickenson Bay and one of Antigua’s best beaches. The whole island of Antigua is famous for 365 fantastic beaches. The entire island is surrounded by reefs.

5. Le Blanc Spa Resort is located in the heart of Cancun’s famous beaches. The ocean here isn’t great for swimming, but you can certainly enjoy playing in the waves or take a wave runner out or parasail or walk forever. We love the fact that at this resort, you’re greeted at the beach by an attendant that sets up an umbrella for you, gets you 2 chairs, wraps the chairs in towels, brings you a bucket of ice with your favorite beverages, and makes sure you aren’t hungry.

6. The beach at Beaches Turks and Caicos is so good that we send a lot of honeymoon couples here, even though the resort caters more to families. You can take a short stroll down the beach to a snorkeling park.

7. Sandals Whitehouse is located on the southwest coast of Jamaica. This beach is ideal for peace and quiet, since the resort is surrounded by a 500 acre nature preserve. A 2 mile stroll here will give you an opportunity to see hundreds of starfish on the sandy bottom. Before you go down, just realize that sometimes the clear water can fool you and the bottom might be 20 feet down, when it looks like 6.

8. Last but not least, we head back to Negril. Just around the corner from 7 mile beach is Bloody Bay Beach. Couples Negril is located here and if we didn’t mention it, all of our Couples Negril faithful fans would be really upset. The beach only stretches 2 miles, but this bay is more protected, so the water here is as calm as a lake. People often go out on floats here and fall asleep. So, if you love to be in the ocean, this is a great choice for you.

This is our short list. We have hundreds more with great beaches, but these are your most popular choices. We would not hesitate to send even the pickiest beach connoisseur to any of these resorts.

 

5 Great Reasons To Have A Destination Wedding

By Our Friends at It'sAboutDetails.com, Jason Kimble (Editor in Chief) and Heather Kimble (Executive Editor/Creative Director)

Posted: October 2, 2012

5 Great Reasons To Have A Destination Wedding

Destination weddings are a fun and exciting way to get married.  They allow you to take your big day on the road and have your event at exciting and unique locations.  Is a destination wedding right for you?  Here are 5 great reasons to consider having a destination wedding

1.        Quality time with friends and family.  Generally speaking destination weddings are not a one day event.  The bridal party and the guests usually arrive at the event location at least a few days in advance.  This allows you, as a bride or groom, to have a lot more time to spend one on one with your guests.  You can take part in activities, go out to eat, or just hang out; but this allows you spend more meaningful time with your guests.  Destination weddings also tend to be smaller and more intimate.  That means that on your big day, instead of having to make your way through a room of 250 people to make sure you get in all your face time, you may only be dealing with 40 or 50 guests.

2.       Less expensive.  Many times, because the guest list will be smaller, the overall cost of the wedding will be lower.  Most destination wedding locations offer a variety of wedding packages from the simple to the extremely elaborate.  No matter how elaborate your big day is, the smaller guest list means the costs will definitely be lower than a larger guest list. 

3.       All Inclusive.  Destination weddings can take place anywhere; however, most of them are at many beautiful resorts.  This means all sorts of activities, and exciting things to do with your guests.  In many cases, these activities are already included in your costs.  It also means that, in most cases, you don’t have to worry about paying for food and drinks throughout your stay.  The best part is that the moment the wedding ends; your honeymoon can begin.  You don’t have to worry about rushing from the reception site to a hotel, or catching a flight to get to your honeymoon, because you are already at your honeymoon destination.

4.       Fresh, locally authentic fare.  One of the best things about a destination wedding is that you can incorporate the fresh local fare that the area is known for into your big day.  Having a coconut or a banana fresh off a tree at a tropical destination or having fresh caught fish to dine on really adds to the thrill of the day.  No matter the destination, there are things that are local and can be unique to your event.  Serving your guests fresh Maine lobster or Dungeness crabs in Maryland are just some of the ways to make their experience extremely memorable.

5.       Less Stress.  Having a destination wedding will truly cut down on the stress of the big day.  Because you are doing everything remotely, it forces you to hand the reigns over to the highly trained wedding professionals employed by or recommend by your event location and wedding planner.  Another reason remote planning helps cut the stress is you don’t have time to over analyze your decisions.  The final look of the event space is going to be a semi surprise since in many cases you have not seen all of the details in person.  This way you don’t spend hours looking at the color swatches thinking “Should I go with the cornflower blue or the sea foam green napkins?”  

Enjoy our guest blogger series brought to you by our friends at itsaboutdetails.com.  Take a look at their site for the latest in wedding planning, trends and ideas!  

Photo courtesy of ItsAboutDetails.com

 

 

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