20 Things I Learned from Having A Destination Wedding

I got married a year ago so I thought it would fun to share all the things I've learned from having a destination wedding and what I would have done differently or happy I did. Did I mean to post this much earlier and procrastinated? Yes, I did. But better late than never!!

Disclaimer: no hate and all love to everyone if you feel like any of this this applies to you. This post is solely to help future brides and grooms.

Invite everyone. If I could go back in time, I wish I invited everyone I knew. We had a hard cap at 150 so we basically only invited close family and friends. We didn't invite A LOT of people because I really thought all my close family and friends would fly to Italy. Spoiler alert: they didn't. Instead, I'm almost positive we have a number of family and friends who are still upset they were not invited. I don't think all of them would have showed up, but I feel like I hurt a lot of people's feelings for no reason. It was never my intention to hurt anyone, we just happen to be Indian and know 500+ people all over the world and I really thought that the 150-people capacity would be reached quickly. Especially since my husband's family is double the size of mine.
I enjoyed having a small wedding. You're probably like "what?" because of what I just said above. And that is all true!! However, I really like how intimate our wedding felt. When I've attended big weddings as a guest, I normally don't get a chance to talk to the bride and groom. It was wonderful getting to catch up with most of our guests, especially since so many family members were there that I hadn’t seen in years.
Hire a wedding planner. And make sure they are local to your destination. Do not even attempt to try to plan your wedding without a planner. I almost called the wedding off if we didn't hire a planner first (not joking). I know there are wedding planners that specialize in destination weddings, but I highly recommend getting a planner that is local to the country/province that your wedding is located in. They are familiar with the customs, the venues, vendors, everything. If there are any language barriers, they are there to bridge that gap. Our planners handled negotiations with vendors I know we wouldn't have been able to do. I have no clue what we would have done without our planners and I am so glad they were already in Italy to handle things on the ground.
Hire a wedding planner, but still expect to plan. Our wedding planners were amazing. As a couple who didn't have a single connection to vendors in Italy, we solely relied on our planners for EVERY single vendor - caterers, lighting, photography, etc. And they all exceeded our expectations. However, I made the mistake of not paying attention to certain details and just assumed our planners and vendors were handling it since it wasn't brought up. They didn't (no fault to them). Just pay attention early on and ask questions if there are things that need to be done early vs a month out. Especially if you're a Type A person (aka me).
People will take their time to RSVP. We had an early deadline for RSVPs due to the fact that our wedding was across the world. We sent out Save the Dates almost 9 months out and our wedding invitations about 6 months out. We sent it months in advance to give guests plenty of time to decide and plan if they wanted to go across the world for a wedding. Aside from people who specifically told us in advance that they needed time to decide due to circumstances, we had numerous people who still needed to think about it who clearly had not thought about the trip at all even though we told most people a year out.
Expect people to not read the wedding invitation. We had people ask for the wedding date... which was on the wedding invitation.
Expect people to not read the wedding website. We were told to make a detailed website since we were having a destination wedding and we went above and beyond with providing as much information as possible about dress code, accommodations, and things to do in Italy. We had a number of people ask us simple questions which was a sign that they had not looked at the website.
E-vites < Physical invitations. While our wedding invitations were beautiful, if I could go back in time, I would have done online invitations instead. As stated earlier, we had a lot of people who did not read our invitation or wedding website. If we had done online invites, it would have forced people to open the invitation and website. We also could have invited more people since we wouldn't have had to mail out extra invitations. We had some mailing issues and there were people who ended up not even receiving our invitation. There are websites now which will notify the bride and groom if people have opened the invite or not, so it would have been a lot easier for us to figure out who had received their invitation or not. I know some people would see it as tacky, but I personally think it's even tackier to not even read the wedding invitation and ask questions that are on the invite or website.
Don't forget about the weather. I don't know why, but we were just not thinking about the weather when we having an outdoor reception. Italy had an unusual rainy season and we had to make a last minute decision (When I say last minute, I mean 3 days before the wedding) to add a tent which ended up being an additional cost we had not anticipated. 100% our fault for not thinking about it earlier on, but if you're having an outdoor reception, ask the venue and your planner about the alternative plan for rain at the beginning stages of planning! Thankfully the rain stopped before our ceremony began, but we were so thankful to have the tent.
Transportation. When choosing a venue abroad, be sure to think about the logistics. Will it the venue be easy to get to? Will the wedding be in the same area as everyone is staying? Are the ceremony and reception in the same place? Or will guests have to drive to the venue? Are you planning on providing any transportation? Our church was in central Florence, so it was easy for guests to walk or get a taxi to. However, the reception venue was a little out of the way, so we provided transportation from the church to the venue and had sprinter vans and taxis available to take guests back into the city after the reception.
Vendors might expect cash payments. There were a number of our vendors who only accepted cash payments. Did not realize that till close to the wedding date (Like the day we were flying to Italy). If the country uses a different currency, be sure to get cash in earlier on because most banks do not keep thousands of bills from other countries on hand so they have to order them in advance. We were able to get most of the cash, but had to ask family and use ATMs in Italy to get the remaining cash. So ask ahead which vendors only accept cash and make sure you have it on hand (in a safe hidden place of course).
Make a list of pictures you want taken. Looking back at my photos, they were great. However, the day was chaotic and busy and there were a number of pictures I did not have taken or I just forgot about. They weren't super important, but I wish there were some pictures I had taken with some people.
Make sure you have a wedding rehearsal. This also seems like common sense, but we were unable to have a proper wedding rehearsal at our church because it was booked, so we ended up practicing quickly right before our welcome dinner. Not a huge deal, but there were a number of things that I noticed during our ceremony which still bother me to this day and could have possibly been avoided if we had a proper wedding rehearsal.
Host a welcome party. My husband and I were over the multiple-day weddings (aka Indian weddings that last 3-4 days) and did not want to make ours into a huge spectacle. One, I don't have the energy like I did when I was 21 to party three days in a row (lol). Two, I knew it would be a lot for some of our guests. If they were making a short vacation out of our wedding, I didn't want them to spend majority of their trip at a wedding. However, we thought it would be a good idea to host a welcome dinner for everyone in a less formal setting. This ended up being one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend! It felt like we were breaking the ice and everyone was able to meet and mingle before the actual wedding day which would obviously be much more formal. The dinner had no assigned seating, we served a buffet dinner, and had an open bar. Ended up getting more crazy than we anticipated which was more than okay with me! Lots of food, drinks, and dancing.
Create a packing list. I started a list on my phone months in advance for me and my husband of things we needed to pack for the wedding. Since you'll be in a place that is not home, if you forget something, it will be a lot more difficult to get, or you might have to do without that item. Things tend to get stressful as the day gets closer and you're more likely to forget things that you actually need. And start making that list early!
People will take pictures during your ceremony, even if it's unplugged. There were a lot of things that I didn't care about in regards to my wedding, but the one thing that was a non-negotiable for me was an unplugged ceremony. I have gone to many weddings, and guests will have their cameras out blocking people and prevent the photographers and videographers from doing their job. And I always thought it was disrespectful to the couple and the officiant. I knew this would be a problem, so I tried to take as many precautions as possible. We posted on our wedding website that it would be an unplugged ceremony. We had wedding programs and it was written in the program that the ceremony was unplugged. I had an announcement made that cell phones would not be allowed during the ceremony. We even had the ceremony live-streamed and I sent the link to all our family. Unfortunately, that was not enough. Wedding videos and pictures were on the family WhatsApp groups before the ceremony had ended. I would recommend talking to those people who might be more likely to be taking photos during the ceremony and tell them gently to not have their phones out during the ceremony if you plan on having an unplugged ceremony.
Skip the bridal party. We opted to not have a bridal party and I think it was one of the best decisions we made. On top of planning a wedding that was across the world, having to not worry about bridesmaid/groomsman outfits, hair and makeup, etc. was a relief. Looking back on the day, we would have had to cut out something in order to accommodate things we would normally have to do with the bridal party. It also allowed my close friends to not stress out about bridesmaid duties on top of traveling to a foreign country. I could honestly write a whole post about my thoughts on bridal party culture, but we'll save that for another time.
Check the season. Touristy places usually have a peak season, so take that into consideration when you are planning your wedding. Venues and vendors will be booked out and will be more expensive. We opted for fall mostly because of the weather, but pretty much every venue we looked at had availability for the dates we wanted because it was towards the end of the wedding/tourist season.
Get married on a weekday. When we started looking at dates for our wedding, we ended up choosing the anniversary of our very first date, which happened to fall on a Monday. At first, we weren’t sure about having a weekday wedding, but then we realized it didn’t really matter. Most of our guests were going to take time off for travel anyway, whether it was a Monday or a Saturday. In the end, it worked out perfectly. Having a weekday wedding meant our first choice vendors were available (and some even came at a lower cost), and the city itself felt a little calmer and less crowded, which made everything feel more relaxed and special.
Have a pre-wedding photoshoot. We knew we wanted to take photos around the city of Florence, but knew that would be impossible on our wedding day with our schedule. So we booked a photoshoot 2 days before our wedding. We originally booked a separate shoot because of the wedding day schedule, but this also ended up being a great "trial" run for the real events. Since I didn't have a hair and makeup trial with my makeup artist, I was able to test out the look I wanted for the wedding day and figured out how much time it would actually take to get ready for the wedding events and if there was anything I needed to do to prep for the actual day. We were a lot more relaxed because we had nothing else going on that day. Also allowed us to get to know our photographers and makeup artist which was awesome because they were all fantastic to work with all weekend.

I'm sure after this is posted, I will think of other things I learned during this season. But for now, this is it. If you have any other questions or suggestions, comment them below for the future brides!

Here are some pictures of the pretty details of our wedding 💓

Photography by Punti di Bianco