Wedding Tips

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Location

The location of your wedding may be the single most important choice you make. The city or town in which your wedding takes place will dictate the types of venues available, influence the tone of the wedding, and most definitely affect the total cost for you and your guests. It's also one of the earliest decisions you will need to make in the planning process when you're still just learning all the details about what's involved in planning a wedding.

Local Weddings
The simplest decision is to have the wedding in the city you reside. You will be able to meet one-on-one with every vendor and there is much less room for error when you can see and meet the people you're dealing with in person rather than over a phone and fax machine. You will have total control over every decision and can easily take care of things after work or on the weekends. If you still live in the hometown you're from, you will have no problem getting help from old friends and relatives.

Hometown Weddings
In today's modern world, less and less of us stay in the neighborhood we grew up in. Perhaps you're from smalltown, USA and now you're a in professional living in the big city. Or maybe after college, you decided to try a different coast. Whatever the reason, you and your fiancée may still have strong attachment to your hometown of want to make it as easy as possible for your family to attend the wedding. In this case, your best option may be to hold the wedding in your hometown. The good news is that you have relatives and friends there who you can trust and will help you coordinate details. The negative is that if you're unable to travel there often enough, you give up some control of the wedding. Maybe your mom, as well-meaning as she is, has a very different vision for your wedding than you do. Or perhaps, your high-school friend who told you she will totally help out has problems finding time in her busy schedule when push comes to shove.

Destination Wedding
A very popular choice today is the destination wedding. Many couples are deciding to exchange vows on an exotic island or some other location that they think will be provide the most perfect background to their wedding ceremony. While these can often be the most spectacular weddings, they are also the hardest to plan and most expensive--for both you and your guests.

Keep in mind, if attendance is important to you, it's likely that many invited guests will NOT come to a destination wedding (if you're trying to plan a smaller wedding, this may be an advantage).

Furthermore, it's trickier to coordinate details of a destination wedding since you are so far away from the location, band, caterer, florist, etc. Negotiating details over the phone can be error prone and frustrating, especially if you're dealing with time zones or language barriers. Some tips:

Consider planning during the off-season to keep prices down
Check into legal requirements for getting married there? Do you need to be a resident? Do you need to show up in person a month before?
Definitely visit the location at least once. Don't trust pictures from a website or brochure.
Hire a wedding consultant at the destination to assist.

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