Today’s post is the first of three parts on budgeting for destination weddings. Our guest writer is Chezelle Rodriguez, the owner of Chezelle Dezines, an event-planning and graphic-design company in Puerto Rico. She specializes in destination weddings, and you can read more about Chezelle’s work in her Real Weddings From LWPI Graduates post.

Photo Courtesy of Saul Padua Photography

What Couples Often Overlook and What to Expect

What is there to say about the hot trend of destination weddings? Most couples I’ve worked with say that if they had held their wedding in their hometown their guest list would have quickly grown. This is often the deciding factor to having a destination wedding: fewer guests and a wedding where they can enjoy being with friends and family over a long weekend rather than for just four hours.

Couples are always looking for smart ways to maximize their wedding dollars. And for good reason: The average cost of a wedding was $24,066 last year (according to The Wedding Report), a hefty price tag for an event that lasts just a few hours. Some couples are able to pull off a destination wedding that lasts days for a fraction of the cost.

When you use the word wedding as an adjective when speaking with venues and vendors, prices soar! Prioritizing is the key to maximizing your wedding dollars. Think about what is most important to you. Is it the food, décor, or the location? You should not have to go into debt to have a stylish wedding.

This three-part series is written to give you some good tips on budgeting for and planning your destination wedding.

The Benefits of Hiring a Certified Wedding and Event Planner

Having an onsite planner is key to planning a destination wedding! They can offer a lot of creative ideas and save you time, hassles, and they will be your eyes and ears on site. They also have preferred vendors that will be an asset to making your event flow seamlessly.

Couples use the Internet to do most of their wedding research, but you really need to inspect the site before booking it. A planner can show up at a site when it’s set up for an event and they will give you some insight on how the staff works and ideas that will help determine the décor.

Catering managers help you plan the logistics of your wedding but will only cover what is within the hotel walls. Destination weddings have many details that go outside of the hotel, for example, tourist excursions, dinners, transportation and much more.

Some local wedding planners have relationships with destination planners who will be on site the day of your wedding, saving you the cost of flying them in, booking their room, transportation and meals, which can go above the usual 5 percent that comes out of your wedding budget.

Be sure to check out Part II and Part III of Chezelle’s series on Destination Wedding Budgets!

Our Real Wedding this month comes from Chezelle Rodriguez, the owner of Chezelle Dezines, an event-planning and graphic-design company, which she opened in 1999. She specializes in destination weddings in Puerto Rico.

“Evelyn and Andrew are both native New Yorkers who met at Columbia University as alums and fell in love at first sight. Their first vacation together was at El Conquistador four years ago. “It’s where we fell in love, and we’ve known all this time this is where we wanted to bring everyone to see us wed!” Evelyn says. Andrew is the president of Manhattan GMAT and also the founder of a nonprofit group called Venture for America. After years in marketing at L’Oreal, Evelyn is now the director of marketing at zeel.com, a beauty and wellness site. They currently live in New York City.

Evelyn reached out to me in June 2009 on a trip she made to visit vendors in Puerto Rico. Our personalities clicked, and the planning began that very same day. I knew she was going to be on the island for a couple of days so I made sure her time was well spent. I scheduled her hair and makeup trial, site inspection, and she got a chance to sit down with the decorators to discuss what she envisioned for her special day. After she went back to New York we communicated via email and phone on a regular basis.

The color of the wedding was an Orchid purple with green and white accents. Bridesmaids wore purple, and the linens for the reception were custom made from a swatch that Evelyn had sent me. Purple and green water goblets were also placed on the tables to give it an extra touch of color.

These two were the cutest couple! They called themselves teddy and they even had a “bear” love language. Andrew proposed to Evelyn with a comic-strip illustration of two bears on a tropical island, walking on the beach, and the bear had an engagement ring hidden inside an oyster. This is where I got the idea to incorporate the bear theme into the wedding. I designed and illustrated the stationery for the wedding, which included the menu, place cards, schedule of events, and program. I hid a teddy bear in the pattern of the design, and for the favors Evelyn picked up some purple gummy bears and placed them in a clear bag. We placed these on the table setting along with the menu.

I knew this wedding was going to be a blast, and I was super excited to be a part of the planning process. Having 120 guests fly in from New York was a challenge, and keeping them busy that weekend was one, too. Everything was outdoors, which called for us to have a Plan B in case of rain. Evelyn wanted her guests to feel like they were at home. She had me put together one of the best welcome bags that I’ve ever made. Inside her guests had two bottles of water, snacks, a mini first-aid kit, and for the women she had an organza bag filled with Chanel #5 perfume, Dior mascara and lip gloss, and lots of goodies from L’Oreal. Along with the welcome bag each guest received a bottle of Monet wine and a schedule of events.

Guests were invited to a brunch the day before on a nearby island called Palomino, which the hotel owns. The ceremony took place at the Casitas Garden under a trellis adorned with roses, hydrangeas and sheer organza linen. Ottomans and garden chairs were placed on a beautiful labyrinth, and the aisle was filled with rose petals. The reception was held under the stars at Trellises. Everyone had lots of fun with the photo booth that was used as a guest book. During the cake cutting my staff passed out sparklers to each guest, and they all lit them and surrounded Evelyn and Andrew as they cut the cake. Their cake cutting song was “Firework by Katy Perry.” Every detail was well thought out, and it was a wonderful experience.”

Are you an LWPI graduate or instructor? Are you interested in having one of your weddings featured? Contact our managing editor for more information, and for more on the vendors used in Evelyn and Andrew’s wedding see the following links.

Location: El Conquistador Resort, Puerto Rico
Ceremony and Cocktails: Casitas Garden
Reception: Trellises
Guests: 120
Coordinator: Chezelle Dezines
Décor: Arquetipo
Stationery: Chezelle Dezines
Photographer: Saul Padua Photography
Cake: El Conquistador Resort
Hair and Makeup: Golden Door Spa at El Conquistador
DJ: Julie Covello – DJ Shakey
Photobooth: Puerto Rico Photobooth

“To those who can dream, there is no such place as faraway.” – Author Unknown

While no one knows how many engaged couples envision their wedding ceremony gracing an exotic locale in a distant land, as many as one in six of your clients will want to make their destination wedding fantasy a real life planning challenge. For the Certified Wedding Planner new to the fastest growing segment of wedding planning, the opportunity can be exhilarating and intimidating.

The decision to take the show on the road can be frightening for your client as well. In the early stages, your job is to help them weigh the advantages and disadvantages of nuptials on the road. While they can save money and reduce stress with weddingmoon packages and smaller guest lists, they may not enjoy navigating foreign legal requirements and missing family and friends.

With leading wedding destinations ranging from Las Vegas, Hawaii, and the Caribbean to South America, Europe and the Far East, and everywhere in between, it is vital to develop a basic game plan before attempting to service the travelling bride and groom.

Lisa Light, expert wedding planner and author of the best-selling book, Destination Bride, details five phases the Certified Wedding Planner must follow to turn a client’s destination wedding dream into reality.

Phase One: Organize your client’s thoughts, desires, priorities, finances, and other resources.

Phase Two: Perform due diligence on your client’s chosen destination beyond location to include specific venues.

Phase Three: Research and determine the services and service providers you will use including travel, accommodations, guest considerations, wardrobe, menu, and décor.

Phase Four: Confirm and reconfirm all the details to insure a flawless event.

Phase Five: Coordinate all the elements you have designed to ensure everything goes as planned and your client is able to relax and thoroughly enjoy their wedding celebration.

Even more so than with planning a local event, a destination wedding’s success is in the details. Additional logistics for including children in the ceremony, booking an exclusive venue, or arranging travel for the wedding party and guests can quickly become overwhelming without extensive forethought, research, and planning.

When time and resources allow, it is always best to visit venues and vendors prior to contracting their services. When time and resources are short, you should work to develop a relationship with a Certified Wedding Planner local to your destination who can provide referrals and testimonials on wedding service providers.

Destination weddings can be the most romantic, prestigious, and exotic events you will ever plan. How often you get to create your art amidst foreign ambience depends on your commitment to preparation and your aptitude for implementation.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, and penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou