Calling all adventurous lovebirds planning their dream destination wedding!
Having experienced the magic of a three-day Indian wedding, I’m bursting with excitement to share my top tips for packing and preparing for your own multi-day extravaganza.
I’m usually a light packer when I go to Mexico, usually a backpack and carry on and that’s it. Even when I travel for destination makeup appointments, I usually take the same amount of luggage, but that wasn’t going to happen for my 3-day wedding!
I was able to pack all of my large wedding outfits (4 dresses + hubby’s outfits) and take them as a carry on, here’s how I did it.
Packing Multiple Wedding Dresses
I not only had to pack 1 wedding dress, I had to pack 3 Bridal Lehenga’s that were pretty heavy plus my white ballgown wedding dress.
I took them all as a carry on. There was no way I was having any of my dresses thrown around under the airplane!
How did I do it?
1. Vacuum seal bags
2. Garment bags
3. Buy an extra one way seat for your dress
Vacuum Seal Bags
These were amazing and I don’t know if I could have done it without these babies. I bought a few of the Hefty Vacuum Seal bags for my dresses, size large was perfect – XL was way too big – and a few medium sizes for my everyday clothes.
I put each outfit in her own vacuum seal bag, I tried to put the shoes and jewelry in the bag too, but that wasn’t working. So instead. I put the shoes and jewelry in my backpack with my makeup, toiletries and a medium size vacuum seal bag with every day clothes. I realize I could have put my everyday clothes in a checked bag, but its always a fear that something will go missing or not arrive, so I carry as much as I can with me!
I only had 1 pair of short heels and the rest were sandals. My shoes weren’t going to show since my Lehenga’s covered my feet, plus everything was in grass, so why be uncomfortable in heels?
Garment Bags
Garment bags were also super important.
1 Garment bag held 2 of my vacuum sealed bridal lehengas.
2nd Garment bag held my 2 ceremony dresses (also vacuum sealed).
the 3rd Garment bag held all of my hubby’s wedding outfits
So, here’s what that means:
My carry on will cover 1 garment bag and then my extra plane seat for my dress will hold the 2nd garment bag.
Worked like a charm!
I was even able to carry a personal item, which allowed me to also take a backpack with other important items like my bridal jewelry, makeup and shoes.
Hubby’s outfits weren’t nearly as large as mine, they all laid nice and flat in 1 hanging garment back. So all in, we had 3 garment bags for our wedding outfits plus hubby’s suitcase and my backpack each for our daily clothes and other things like shoes, toiletries, jewelry, bathing suits etc.
Buy an additional seat for your dress
We flew South West, so I know for a fact they allow you to purchase an extra plane ticket for your wedding dress. I will say, initially they told me no on the phone but after speaking for a little while longer it turns out that they do allow it!
I did have to purchase that extra plane ticket over the phone so they could notate my account. If I would have tried to purchase it myself online or through the app, South West wouldn’t have known that was for my dress. They would have cancelled it due to thinking it was an accidental double booking. Its super important to do that over the phone. I bought that extra ticket a few months before our wedding.
I called Southwest about a month before my to confirm my extra dress ticket and they confirmed it was under my account.
I don’t know if South West over booked and sold our seat but when we got to the check in counter, I had a emailed receipt but he couldn’t find it in his system. I’m not sure what happened but after about 20 minutes the clerk was able to get us a ticket for that additional seat. When we got on the plane, it was a full flight and there was not a literal seat to put my dress in. I did have to fold it up and place it with the carry on luggage above, which was no big deal for me.
Honestly, starting off our wedding festivities with the check in clerk not having confirmation of our extra seat was a stressful start to the day but we made it through and all of our luggage made it!
A bunch of other stuff we needed to bring
Our guest count was about 90 for our Mexico wedding and most of them were staying at least 3-4 days so we wanted to bring some useful items for everyone. We brought things like sunscreen, mints, dry snacks, liquid IV, makeup wipes, safety pins, nail files, moisturizer, pain killers and put it all in a cute welcome bag (check out the blog on our destination wedding welcome bags).
We also designed some flyers for each day so everyone knew the details of each day and explanations of each ceremony.
My hubby and I didn’t want to do a traditional Sangeet, we wanted to do something different! And it was the best time ever!
We called it Mehndi & Mariachi.
We had 2 henna artists doing designs on our guests, lawn games, table games, poker, fake money with our names on it, loteria, darts, food and of course music, think of it like a garden party – all over looking the ocean. 10 people with the highest amount of our fake money won prizes!
With all that being said, that meant we had a ton of stuff to take with us to Mexico. Our first thought was to ship everything, but it turns out that checking multiple bags at the airport was going to be much cheaper!
My in-laws had a few old – like 20 years old – suite cases they didn’t use anymore so we filled those up with the welcome bag items and then we purchased a few rolling duffle bags from Walmart for the games.
On our way back, we only had to bring half the amount of bags back since we gave out all the welcome bag goodies. We also gave some stuff for our family members to bring back in their bags making flying home much easier than getting their.
The airline attendant at the ticket desk asked if we were moving when we were heading to Mexico 
That’s all my packing tips for you!
I hope these make packing for your destination wedding much easier!
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
