I recently read about the incredible journey of a groom named Gopal, who planned his entire destination wedding in Thailand sitting 5,000 miles away in his London home. He had an interesting story to tell, and as I read through the paragraphs of crisp writing, I found myself scribbling down copious notes…on planning a destination wedding! His article had so many great tips, I knew I had to share them with my readers.

While I encourage you to go read his entire story over at Medium, I boiled it all down to the 10 Essential Tips for Planning Your Own Destination Wedding by Gopal – especially for grooms like himself, who have zero wedding experience!

Image courtesy: Stories by Joseph Radhik

The First 5 Steps to Planning a Destination Wedding

1. Pick a wedding date

Ideally a long weekend, so that people have enough time to travel for your wedding without having to skip too many (or any!) days at work

2. Research and choose your wedding destination

Depending on your date, choose the destination with the best weather 🙂

3. Research and choose photography & videography team

Requirements to look for:

• Someone who has experience covering both – Indian weddings and Destination weddings
• They should ideally be located in the city where you currently live, or at the destination you’re holding your wedding at. The more you can meet them personally, the better they understand you and your needs, which translates to less generic and more personalised pictures

4. Research local event planners

Look for someone who has experience implementing Indian weddings in that area (don’t be shy to ask your photo/video crew for wedding planner recommendations!) If you can’t find one with any Indian wedding experience, you have two options:

• either ensure you have someone in your family who will guide them extensively about the traditions, ceremonies and structure of your wedding
• or, hire a wedding consultant (eg. Devika Narain from Delhi!) and a local production team, who will implement decor and other ideas your consultant provides them with

5. Plan a pre-wedding trip to the destination

Spend a week there with your planner going for:

• site inspections aka visiting potential venues
• supplier visits and meetings, with basically any local vendor you’re going to work with – for example, the person handling logistics, accommodation for your guests, the local entertainment team

Image courtesy: Stories by Joseph Radhik

5 Tips on Keeping the Planning Stage Smooth Sailing

1. Get to know your vendors really well

Share ideas with them, make sure they get to know you. And then – DELEGATE. At some point of time, you should be able to say you’ve built a relationship with your team and now “trust them with the creative freedom to do what they do best.”

2. Definitely hire a wedding planner

You’ll go crazy if you try and plan a destination wedding without their help. And they more than make up for their cost with the better rates they get you for everything, and the amount of time you save.

3. A new email address just for the wedding

Create a new email address for the planner to manage RSVPs from and general communication with guests before and during the event.

4. Tip for naming your wedding website

If you’re creating a wedding website, call it “{BrideName}AND{GroomName}.com” instead of BrideWedsGroom. You can then re-use it later for any other couple announcements you want to make!

5. Gopal’s “Favourite Tech for Grooms” list

• Google apps (for real-time collaboration with all vendors, the planner and family members)
• Smartsheet.com (keeps everyone in sync with the project status, essential when operating across timezones)
• WedPics App (to collate all your wedding pictures clicked by guests)
• UStream (to stream your wedding live to guests who couldn’t make it)

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I hope you found the notes on destination wedding planning helpful. If you’re also planning on a destination wedding, what are the things stressing you out about it the most? If you leave a comment with your stress-points below, we’ll speak to wedding planners and get you some answers!

What’s causing stress in your destination wedding plans?