so confused when it comes to planning!

Hi!

I've been engaged for a year now, and I am finally starting to try and plan our wedding. 

I'm so lost when it comes to planning. We would really like to be able to keep the costs down as much as possible, as we are trying to save up for a down payment, and get ourselves in  the right situation to be able to start a family in a couple of years. 

I can't even figure out when to have it. Right now we are looking at February 2015 or 2016, which seems so far away! We are hoping to get posted somewhere out of our current town (Northern Alberta, Canada), and want to wait until we figure out where we will be living next before we settle on a date and location. 

So, I guess my questions are:

-How did you settle on a location for your wedding? 

-Is it even possible to have a nice wedding for less than 10k?

-How did you deal with the stress of people complaining about having to travel? This has started already, but our families live on different sides of the country, so someone is going to have to travel anyways...

-Are there any resorts that really cater to destination weddings? I have been looking at the individual resort websites, and those help, but I guess really what I'm looking for is the resort that includes the most without having to have a minimum number of bookings.

-What resorts are recommended?

...and probably about a million other questions too, but I think those are my major ones right now! I am SUPER impressed with all of the information on this website, it seems to be so helpful!

thank you all very much

SP

welcome to BDW SP!

I'll try to help answer some of your questions:

-How did you settle on a location for your wedding? we chose an area that had a shorter, direct flight that we thought was beautiful

-Is it even possible to have a nice wedding for less than 10k? yes it is!  most of it depends on how many people will be at your wedding.  Some resorts have really great wedding packages./

-How did you deal with the stress of people complaining about having to travel? This has started already, but our families live on different sides of the country, so someone is going to have to travel anyways..i we really decided that those that came to the wedding, we would be grateful for but if people did not want to come, we would miss them but not dwell on it

-Are there any resorts that really cater to destination weddings? lots!  Palace resorts, AM Resorts, Sandals, Karisma I have been looking at the individual resort websites, and those help, but I guess really what I'm looking for is the resort that includes the most without having to have a minimum number of bookings  have you read the resort review section BDW? it is great because they are really long reviews that rate wedding as well as resort amenities: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/category/resorts-villas

-What resorts are recommended? we book a lot of destination weddings i always like booking with AM Resorts (Dreams, NOW, Secrets) & Palace Resorts.  They tend to be very wedding friendly

Welcome! And congrats on your engagement over a year ago!

Ill try to answer what I can

-Settling on a location was probably the hardest part for us.  We were both University students at the time and wanted somewhere easy to get to that wasn't going to break the bank.  We looked into Mexico, Dominican, Jamaica and a few other carribean destinations.  We loved Mexico as its cheaper then most other places, however, to legally get married there it seemed like a lot of work and money to get documents translated ect.  We chose Jamaica as no one in our group had ever been there and it was relatively cheap.  Also, its really easy to legally get married there.  After that we chose a resort based on our budget.

-Yes, it is possible to have a  nice wedding for less then 10K. We spent just under $5000 for everything, travel included.  The big thing for us was to find a resort that offered a free wedding package. 

-We basically told everyone we were having a destination wedding because thats what we wanted to do.  Most of our family was supportive with a few who were not and questioning our decision.  In the end its your wedding and you need to do what you want to do, not what others want you to do.

-As to particular resorts, I think most cater to destination weddings especially since their popularity is increasing. As to choosing a resort we went based on wedding packages available and we also worked closly with a travel agent who was able to find us resorts that fit our budget.  From there we did lots of research and narrowed our search.

Hope that helps!

 

I kinda felt like that too in the beginning.  I swear it gets easier, with each big decision you make, you are left with the littler more fun ones and you gain in confidence.

-How did you settle on a location for your wedding? We knew that we wanted a DW so honestly, my biggest thing was price.  Flying from our homestate is cheapest to Jamaica, and then we knew we wanted our nieces and nephew involved in the wedding, so we knew we needed a family friendly resort.  Then we just picked the one we liked best.

-Is it even possible to have a nice wedding for less than 10k?  Definitely! I don't remember exactly how much our JA wedding cost but it was well under $10k, maybe as high as $7k?  But we paid for my sister and her two kids to travel so that added a big chunk.  And I super splurged on my dress.  our AHR was a bigger part of the budget since we had over 300 guests, but if we had skipped that, our wedding would've still been just as awesome and we would've save a ton of money!

-How did you deal with the stress of people complaining about having to travel? I ignored them right from the beginning.  I had the attitude that it was my wedding and you can come or not.  I mean, I took into consideration what would be best for my guests, but I did NOT plan around them.  No matter what you do, people are going to complain, so just keep you and your fiance happy.

-Are there any resorts that really cater to destination weddings? I have been looking at the individual resort websites, and those help, but I guess really what I'm looking for is the resort that includes the most without having to have a minimum number of bookings.  Hmmm, I'm confused with this question, b/c when we were looking, every resort offered DW's and I don't recall any requiring a min number of bookings, most had a min number of nights though.  Then again, I was planning almost 5 years ago...

-What resorts are recommended? We got married at Beaches Boscobel in Jamaica and I can't recall any major complaints.  Except the resort photog.  If you go there, def bring in an outside one!  Unless they've hired a better photog since then....

congratulations on your engagement =)

in terms of country i would look for the simplest place to fly to - so compare costs and whether its direct, or needs 1/2/3 transfers or whatever! it is definitely possible to have a nice wedding for less than 10k, a lot of hotels will offer free wedding packages if all of your guests stay there...or the costs are pretty low especially if you want under 20 people.

then, look at legal requirements. for example for a legal wedding in mexico, you need to take a blood test 4 days before wedding. whereas most other countries dotn require that.

finally choose the venue. all inclusive or not. family or adults only. lots of activities or somewhere quite tranquil. do you want access to the town, or you want to stay in the hotel the whole time. stuff like that =)  in terms of minimum number of bookings, most places (i think) thats not an issue but you often have to guarentee your guests, or at least 80% will stay at the hotel. otherwise you end up paying more, and they need to think about buying a day guest pass which can 100 dollars or so. one issue you have to keep in mind when youve chosen a venue and want a location within the venue...a lot of the beaches are public. so you will have sunbathers etc watching your wedding and filming it. some locations within hotels are a bit more private. fully private receptions will have an extra cost, whereas if you just want to use one of the restaurants thats normally included.

most resorts are really used to doing weddings and very experienced...so they have standard packages but you can add your own touches. i would say for example pretty much all of the hotels in cancun would handle your wedding very professionally and things will go off without a hitch.

ive only had one person majorly complaining that my wedding will be in cancun. thing is, i live in monterrey, mexico with my fiance. my family are all in london. so one set of family would have to travel! since my fiances family is about ten times bigger...makes more sense to do it in mexico, and cancun is a much prettier place to have it than monterrey (incredibly industrial, not much to do tourist wise). but my best friend was bitching and repeatedly asking why i couldnt just do it in england, and it was soo expensive and she didnt want to go there etc etc. not even a congratulations or a pretence to care about my wedding. i mean salaries are relative to the economy of the country...so whilst my mexican friends and family have good jobs and good salaries relative to here... their money just wouldnt stretch very far with london prices! and getting 80 mexicans to england is a lot more complicated than getting 10 or so english to mexico.
 

if people complain about it...i simply explain that its an invitation. as in i INVITE you to come. i understand its difficult and expensive.but you have the choice to come, or not. if not, i understand of course, but if you come dont come grudingly with little comments about how its a big ask and really i shouldnt be doing it

Originally Posted by auroraborealis 

Hi!

 

I've been engaged for a year now, and I am finally starting to try and plan our wedding. 

 

I'm so lost when it comes to planning. We would really like to be able to keep the costs down as much as possible, as we are trying to save up for a down payment, and get ourselves in  the right situation to be able to start a family in a couple of years. 

 

I can't even figure out when to have it. Right now we are looking at February 2015 or 2016, which seems so far away! We are hoping to get posted somewhere out of our current town (Northern Alberta, Canada), and want to wait until we figure out where we will be living next before we settle on a date and location. 

 

So, I guess my questions are:

 

-How did you settle on a location for your wedding? 

-Is it even possible to have a nice wedding for less than 10k?

-How did you deal with the stress of people complaining about having to travel? This has started already, but our families live on different sides of the country, so someone is going to have to travel anyways...

-Are there any resorts that really cater to destination weddings? I have been looking at the individual resort websites, and those help, but I guess really what I'm looking for is the resort that includes the most without having to have a minimum number of bookings.

-What resorts are recommended?

 

...and probably about a million other questions too, but I think those are my major ones right now! I am SUPER impressed with all of the information on this website, it seems to be so helpful!

 

thank you all very much

 

SP

I will try to help you out. I was very overwhelmed at first but it does get easier.

-How did you settle on a location for your wedding? This was the hardest part for us. We were worried because we are taking a group of 60 and wanted to make sure the hotel was going to meet everyone's needs. What I did was I narrowed it down to a country. In choosing the country we kept the cost for guests in mind. We decided on Jamaica as it is a beautiful but not outrageously expensive. Next I did my resort research and narrowed it down to 3. Cost was amajor player in this selection as well. We wanted to keep the cost to about $1500 per person which we were able to do. I weighed the pros and cons for each resort and choose the Riu.

-Is it even possible to have a nice wedding for less than 10k? - It is definitely possible to have a beautiful wedding for under 10k. We budgeted 10 and we are only spening around 8k. We are having everything we would want and have upgraded a lot.

-How did you deal with the stress of people complaining about having to travel? This has started already, but our families live on different sides of the country, so someone is going to have to travel anyways...-At first I got really upset everytime someone complained but I got to the point where I told myself that this was what we could afford and those that really want to be there will be. We gave everyone 2 years notice so they could save for the wedding. You are planning far enough away that people should be able to save. We did get a lot of complaining from our grandparents who are older and don't want to fly. For them we are live streaming the wedding so they can watch it at home.

-Are there any resorts that really cater to destination weddings? I have been looking at the individual resort websites, and those help, but I guess really what I'm looking for is the resort that includes the most without having to have a minimum number of bookings.-  I have found in doing research that almost every resort now caters to destination weddings. Some of the ones I looked at are Riu, Iberstar, Gran Bahia, Sandals, Beaches, Dream/Secrets.

-What resorts are recommended? - I have not yet been to a destination wedding but the Riu Ocho Rios has been great to work with so far.

I hope this helps you.

Happy planning

thank you all for your wonderful responses! sorry it took me so long to reply... my grandfather passed away shortly after writing that post, and between work and getting back to my life this is the first time that I have had a chance to check the website.. so much useful information from all of you though!