Last week we published an article showing average costs for a wedding in these years. Figures were scaring at first, but we mentioned how important a wedding planner can be to offer you impressive deals compared to average prices. Today we would like to add some considerations to these, highlighting how much more interesting a Destination Wedding can be when we come to a cost calculation.

First of all, for those who are concerned about the budget, you can allow yourself to hire a wedding planner without feeling “guilty”. A wedding planner, as said, will help you saving money with fantastic deals and most of the times offering pre-packaged wedding bundled services for very good deals. This does not mean your wedding will be a “black boxed”/standardized one, it simply means that you have a starting point for given services which, if pre-packaged, can still be customized with your details, but offered at a better price than if purchased one by one.
Moreover when deciding for a destination wedding the first concern might be the language barriers, but a local wedding planner will take care of all the interactions for you and will act as a guide and an interpreter throughout your most important dates related to your wedding, relieving you from all the stress and controlling everything on your behalf, knowing the way of doing business of the local vendors (which can be very different than what you are used to)

Image under copyright sourced from impawards.com

Only the bullet above in itself is a reason to chose for a wedding abroad, but I can tell you that most of our couples after trying a first DIY approach and them hired us, claim our fee was more than compensated by the savings we offered overall.

However there are some other considerations below:

First: in a wedding abroad you will celebrate you dream wedding in the fantastic spots in the world you have always dreamt of, for the same or less than what you would have spent home in known places, trying to find something different than what your close friend or relative just did (remember the movie Bride Wars?).

Second: in a wedding abroad, you will experience new local traditions, and you can “throw your local traditions out of the windows”. This does not mean your traditions cannot be kept, on the other side you might feel bound by them, and forced to act in a way you would not want to or do not feel at ease with. There are always lashings of flowers, layers of cake, extra bridesmaids and lavish trimmings, most of which you don’t really need. With a cheap wedding abroad you can throw these out the window creating a much simpler affair and saving you thousands. IF YOU WANT TO.

Third: have you ever said “OH, I have to invite Mr XY friend of Uncle Joe, as they expect I do, but I do not know him, and I am not sure I want him on my wedding day” … Well on a wedding abroad you can freely invite him, but be sure only your closest friends and beloved will follow you. And one of the highest expenses of the wedding: the reception {a per person cost}, will be reduced heavily, sometimes allowing you to offer the full trip to your close friends and still saving compared to the wedding in your home country. (most of the destination weddings have a number of less than 50-40 guests)

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Last but not least: you can celebrate the wedding in the honeymoon spots and bundle the two costs resulting in a huge saving in itself!

You might want to inquire us for a no obligation telephonic consultation filling the couple information form or ordering  the book “Let’s Elope”

A nice restaurant, or the place on earth you spent your best days together, a fabulous ring, a the wedding proposal… some tears of joy, happiness, tell all your friends you are getting married, post it on facebook, start dreaming of where to celebrate the wedding, who to invite, what to wear.

You start surfing the web for wedding gowns, buy magazines start inquiring ans your already married friends how much this or that costed them.. and you start making calculations about your budget and what you can afford.

Ella and Stephen

Here you can find a list of prices from – to for the most common items for a wedding, and then some considerations:

These prices are average prices and derive from a survey published by Vogue Sposa 2011. Now these numbers might be scary, and lead the couple to take some annoying decisions like cutting here and there and reshaping the wedding from what they originally had dreamt of.

wedding reception

The DIY temptation is so strong, hiring a wedding planner seems most of the time a luxury you cannot afford, and more than this a destination wedding. In years of experience though, a wedding planner has created such a strong network of partners that the prices you can get through a professional is much lower than presenting yourself alone in front of a vendor. The word “wedding” most of the times generate a “slight” price increase to the end user, because vendors know that dealing with couples will cost them a huge amount of time, and are scared not to have enough resources to cope with it.

wedding table

A wedding Planner is paid to deal with you instead, and can reverse on you in savings all the better price that can obtain, so by experience final prices of a wedding organized by us are usually 1/2 to 2/3 of the ones mentioned above, which is a lot less! With a lot less stress to the couple that can live in harmony the preparation to the wedding day, and have an expert help, more than covered by the savings themselves, of what is wrongly considered Luxury only: the wedding planner.

Stay tuned as next week we will cover “why deciding for a destination wedding in Tuscany”
If you want to know more inquire here

Throw a Dream Wedding on a Shoestring Budget

Moving into 2011, two trends in wedding planning that continue to grow are destination weddings, and the need for brides and grooms to plan their wedding at their convenience — and not on the telephone.

The WeddingQuick Quote (WQQ) is the tool that enables venue shopping and wedding planning around the clock. Wedding venues increasingly understand that todayʼs clients are accustomed to using the information highway to shop and find instant answers to their questions. Brides are now likely to purchase wedding dresses on line. Grooms are likely to buy or rent suits or tuxedos on line. The internet is used to research and book the honeymoon, rehearsal dinner, and every other detail of the event. It was only a matter of time before we were finally able to find a venue on line.

The WQQ is a customized set of wedding planning pages that enables the shopper (bride, groom, wedding planner) to view the venueʼs unique offerings of amenities and services, choose the items (packages, menus, linens, setting…) to include, and immediately generate an estimated cost. The venue automatically receives a copy of the quote. In the process, the user gets acquainted with the venue, by seeing the offerings. Likewise, the catering professional who receives the quote understands the items that are important to the client, and her approximate budget. When the two get together, they can add a few personal touches, and quickly close the deal.

In planning destination weddings, problems resulting from time differences disappear. The venueʼs sales office is open 24/7. The destination venue that has the WQQ embedded on its homepage will always be the first to respond to a lead, and quickly book the business. As the first venue of 2011 to join WQQ, Orlandoʼs Grand Bohemian Hotel is looking forward to using WQQ to give brides and grooms access to their wedding arrangements in a more efficient and timely manner. They believe the WQQ will make clients feel like they have an integral part in the planning process, from the early stages.