Are you in the process of planning your destination wedding? Is your wedding a fusion of cultures? Mine was! I learned so much from my 3-day Indian wedding, I have to tell my fellow brides in planning!
Here are my 10 tips to keep in mind when planning your destination wedding.
At a glance:
- Choose your outdoor ceremony time wisely
- Have an unplugged ceremony
- Fake flowers vs real flowers
- Hire vendors you trust
- Make a photo list
- Schedule private time
- It’s all about what the couple wants
- Don’t stress about the small stuff
- Divorced parents
- Getting the bill
1. Choose your outdoor ceremony time wisely
I really wanted to soak up all the beautiful sun and lush jungle around us, so I wanted to have as much of the wedding festivities in the sun as possible. But wow did that come at a cost.
We started our wedding day events with The Barat at 2pm, and wow was it HOT!
I knew it would be hot but I didn’t think it would be that hot! It seemed alright in the shade but unfortunately there weren’t many shaded areas where my hubby has his Barat.
Then we moved to the garden where we melted in the sun under our mandap. Our guests were melting.
That was rough, especially draped in all of of our heavy traditional Indian Bridal attire.
Luckily, we were in a garden area that had a little shade move in after some time. Our guests could move into the shade and have some ice cold water, watermelon and strawberry infused waters, it was delicious. Our wedding coordinator also brought a few umbrellas to the mandap to give us shade.
Thinking back, I think it would have been great to give our guests some kind of cold treat during our Hindu ceremony to cool them off.
Thank goodness for the team of people at our resort, they made it a truly seamless and beautiful experience.
2. Have an unplugged ceremony
We had an unplugged ceremony because we didn’t want everyone with their phones out in our photographer’s photos.
I recommend having a designated friend or family member to hold your phone (or use their phone) to sneak some photos and videos during the ceremony. You’ll be so happy you did!!
3. Fake Flowers vs Real Flowers
You wouldn’t be able to tell by just glancing at the photos, but most of our flowers were fake!
This was a recommendation from our wedding planner and florist.
The Bougainvillea flowers we wanted were super fragile and would quickly wilt in the summer heat.
So we went with fake flowers for the mandap, photo area and bride and groom table.
We used real flowers for the centerpieces, our Varmalas and bouquets.
4. Hire vendors you trust
Hire vendors that you trust and vibe with. I cannot tell you how important this is. Our 90 person destination wedding was a seamless dream all thanks to our amazing wedding vendors.
Our wedding planner and coordinator was provided by the resort and did an outstanding job. From the planning process to the actual events, it was all a wonderful experience.
We got to indulge in it all.
Picture this: Its your wedding day and your getting ready in a beautiful tropical paradise. When your ready, all you have to do is leave your bridal suite, walk down to your wedding event space and enjoy every moment with your closest friends and family. That’s what it was like and we couldn’t have done that without our coordinator guiding every thing for us.
The other most important vendor we hired was our travel agent, Vagablonde Travel. Let me say, my head probably would have exploded if I didn’t have Jen and Josh taking care of our guests travel details.
Vagablonde created a web page for our guests where they could choose their room and book their stay at the resort where our wedding was. They kept in contact with each guest to make sure they had their airfare booked, transportation to and from the airport, passport details and anything else they needed in regards to their travels. Did I mention we had a total of 90 people traveling for our wedding in Mexico?!
They didn’t stop there, Vagablonde also has an app that all of our guests can download that will keep them updated on their flight and transportation details, and a schedule of all 3 days of our wedding events. All these details right at the tip of our guests fingers, what a fantastic system! This made sure our guests were lounging around on the beach when they are supposed to be at an event and it kept everyone from asking us a million questions.
Thank you Vagablonde!
5. Make a List for Group Photos
Our Hindu ceremony, Christian ceremony and reception all had to happen simultaneously. Everything outside had to end at 11pm to respect the other guests in the resort. That meant we had to stay on schedule because the sun was going down.
One things I heard from my sister in law was that photos look quit a long time and cut into the reception so we wanted to make sure we were efficient in getting out photos with our guests.
Give your friend or MC and photographer a list of groups for photos and have them call out the names to keep the timeline moving.
This worked super smoothly with our 88 guests.
We also met with our photographer and planner before the events started so we could give them a list of the photos we wanted, like a group photo at each event, candid photos, getting ready photos, first look photos etc.
6. Schedule in private time for the couple
A piece of advise a lot of our married friends and family told us was to make sure we schedule in private time for the couple.
We scheduled in 3 private times on the wedding day.
1. 1st look before our Hindu ceremony
2. 2nd look before our Christian ceremony
3. Our private vows before going to our reception
My husband and I both have talked about how special those moments were to us, because outside of that we were surrounded by our loved ones at all times of the wedding day.
7. It's all about what the couple wants
Do what you want, and I really mean that. For example, we did 2 religious ceremonies back to back, 3 first looks after each outfit change on our wedding day, did our vows privately, we didn’t cut the cake and we had no bridal party. It was awesome.
Call us crazy but we wouldn’t change a thing.
8. Don't stress about the small stuff
Don’t stress about the small things like a wedding Playlist 
I stressed about the music list for each event because we didn’t want to play things like YMCA, Cupid Shuffle and other songs like that. We have a different style, plus we had 3 events we needed songs for so we needed a lot.
We created the playlist in a short amount of time, having it ready like a day or 2 before the wedding. And then? The DJ didn’t even play our playlist!! He played very similar songs in the same genre but looking back I remember there are specific songs he didn’t play.
Moral of the story, I wouldn’t have stressed about it had I known he just wanted to know our vibe and didn’t necessarily want an exact playlist to play at each event.
9. Divorced Parents
A big stresser for me was thinking about who would walk me down the aisle, my dad or step dad? I imagine there are a lot of people that deal with anxiety related to this in some kind of way and sheesh, it sucks.
You love them both and don’t want to hurt any feelings or make anyone feel left out. I get it. But just do what makes you happy.
I had one walk me down the aisle for the Hindu ceremony and the other walk me down the aisle for the Christian ceremony. Worked out great!
10. Getting the bill from the resort
If your having your wedding at a resort, be prepared to wait for the decor bill until a week or 2 before the actual wedding.
I will give you some information I would have found super helpful when planning my destination wedding at a resort when it comes to the bill.
- Its not always going to be cheaper than the US
- Be prepared to wait until a week or 2 before your wedding to get a close estimate for the decor, flowers and set up details you set up with your planner. I asked for the quotes at least 2 months before the wedding but we didn’t get them until about 2 weeks before our wedding. That was pretty stressful. This happened to us and a another couple we know that had an Indian wedding in Mexico.
Our Wedding Vendors
Bahia Mita Resort took care of the majority of our wedding from the planning, food, decor including most flowers, guest accommodations, photography and videography.
Ximena was our wedding coordinator at Bahia Mita
Cecilia was our photographer with Adventure Photos.
Vagablonde Travel took care of our travel details and room bookings for our 88 guests.
Floreria Bloom made and delivered our Varmala’s and center pieces.
Lemon’s and Mehdni took care of my bridal Mehndi on my hands and guests and my bridal hair and makeup for all 3 events.
Polished Makeup & Hair took care of family members hair and makeup.
Paisley’s and Swirls did my henna on my feet in Houston.
Dresses:
Orange Lehenga, Blue Lehenga is from Pahlki Fashion
Red Bridal Lehenga & Jewelry is from Roop Sari
White Wedding Dress is from Marry Go Round
