We’ve now chosen a fully catered, fully staffed, fully everything venue in Auckland’s leafy inner suburbs that is just as special and more importantly, just as ‘us’. In the lead up to this decision we’ve learned a few things about planning a wedding abroad.
Here are five tips for UK based couples planning overseas nuptials
1. Pick a ‘minimum effort’ location. Unless you have friends and relatives you trust with your life perfect wedding, then make it easy on yourself. Yes, those DIY venues with the hay bales, the bunting, the painstakingly craftedbomboniere, etc. may look gorgeous on blogs and in mags but there is literally hours worth of work behind this. Hours and valuable suitcase space. Pick a venue that looks nice as is or requires minimum dressing.
2. You’ll never please everyone so just do what’s right for you and your fiancé.Heart set on an overseas location? Put on an extra layer of skin - you might need it. There’ll always be someone (or someones) who has an opinion on why your destination wedding is a crappy idea. Once you both have made a decision about what you want and can do for your wedding, unless you’re really financially dependent on others, don’t worry about what people think or say. It’s true about it being your day. Theoretically you only do it once. You want to get married in Hawaii in your swimming costume? Live your dream, friend.
3. That said, try to accommodate your guests as best as you can - they’ve probably made quite a lot of effort and set aside considerable time and money to help share your day, so it’s worth acknowledging that. In particular, if you want certain people to be there who need special consideration, then bear that in mind when choosing a location.
4. Where possible, use your men/women on the ground. Have family or friends in your chosen location? Get them involved early on (the key term here being: early on - cash in on people’s initial excitement and get those polite small favour requests in!) You’ll feel loads more comfortable about shelling out for that huge deposit if you have a trusted source to scout the venue and send you live updates, for example. If you can’t get there beforehand and nor can anyone else, ask the venue coordinator (or hotel manager or Airbnb owner, etc.) to take you for a Skype or FaceTime tour. Any venue manager
worth their salt will only be too happy to oblige.
5. Arrive at your wedding destination in plenty of time. How many days in advance you choose to arrive will depend on how far you’re going and what you need to do once you’re there. If you’re flying halfway ‘round the world, ensure it’s at least three days prior to the big day - one to get over jetlag, one to sort out last minute details and the last day to primp, preen and chill.
By: Lydia Lobb, Scoutable
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