Your Destination Wedding: Do's and Don'ts For Planning & Travel

Picture this-- you're on a white sandy beach; the wind is blowing softly, lightly pushing the palm fronds that frame you and your partner. You're holding hands, facing each other, the waves crashing musically while an acoustic guitar player adds to the melody.

Now imagine another picture-- half of your wedding party is missing, and so is the wedding dress that was supposed to make its stunning debut today. The in-laws' credit card gets declined when trying to pay the final bill, and the officiant who flew in from your hometown got into a car accident.

Which picture do you prefer? We think we can guess! Destination weddings can be the most magical memory for both the couple and the attendees, but with great travel can come great snafus. So follow along with these do's and make your destination wedding a little less crying-in-a-champagne-glass and a little more relaxing-at-the-spa-post-wedding.

Do's For Your Destination Wedding

We'll start with the positives! These are the things that you want to do in order to make your destination wedding and travel easy and relatively stress-free. Some of these things may be a splurge, but it definitely can be worth the dough at the end of it all.

DO: Hire a Local Wedding Planner ($$$)

This one is one of those potential splurges, but it'll be well worth the money at the end of it all. A local wedding planner can do all the things that you normally would do if you were getting married near home-- the food tasting, the wine tasting, venue visits, recruiting vendors, all the things. This person will be your surrogate in planning and executing a destination wedding.

They can provide you with a curated of people, places, and things to choose from, rather than you going down that Google blackhole of things you can't actually see in person--unless you're planning on visiting A LOT before the wedding.

DO: Carry On Your Wedding Dress and/or Tuxes If Flying ($)

There are far too many horror stories of wedding dresses, and tuxes getting lost either because of shipping issues or lost checked baggage. Do yourself a favor and take your important garments with you!

Call the airline ahead of time and explain you need to carry on either dresses or tuxedos. They can explain to you the size dimensions that the garments will need to fit into, and from there, you can find a rolling garment bag to hand carry on board. Also, depending on the aircraft you're flying, there may be large enough closets that the dress or tux can hang in, so in this case, you can bring the dress in a regular hanging garment bag.

If you absolutely need to ship, then make sure you have a reliable address to send it to, and make sure that address has someone to physically receive it and/or sign for it! This is, again, where a wedding planner may come in handy because you can ship to their office!

And if you absolutely must check the dress or tux in, then read about the airlines that are better (or worse) for checked bag handling.

DO: Get Travel Insurance, Even If The Destination Is Domestic ($-$$)

Nowadays, canceled flights and illnesses are more common than we would like when traveling. To alleviate some of those travel woes, get travel insurance that includes health insurance, even if you're destination wedding is domestic to your home base.

At a destination wedding, you are at the mercy of rental cars, flights, and accidents that happen far away from your local doctor. Travel insurance gives you peace of mind that if anything goes wrong, the original travel is reimbursable. So booking a last-minute replacement plane ticket will sting just a little less. Also, if anyone gets sick, there will be no hesitation to seek medical care!

Don'ts For Your Destination Wedding

Not all planning is infallible, but there are some do not's that will make travel and planning just that much easier. Heed our warnings!

DO NOT: Assume Your Bank Knows You're Traveling

Though your finances may be at the top of your mind when it comes to how much you're spending on the wedding, putting a travel notification on credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts (for checks!) may not be as obvious. Especially if you still have a balance to pay after you arrive at your destination or plan on footing the bill for any meals or activities outside of the wedding, make sure there are no pay barriers!

DO NOT: Ignore Your Guests

Now you don't have to spend all day every day with your guests, but you should have some sort of itinerary for pre-wedding and post-wedding activities. After all, they traveled all that way for you!

If you're worried about monopolizing your guests' time, ensure them that these activities are optional, but to RSVP in a way so that you can have head counts for activities. Doodle polls are fantastic ways of getting people to easily respond. Make a Doodle poll for each activity and see who weighs in!

DO NOT: Forget Your Routine Cosmetics

You will want your tried and true, routine cosmetics for everything--hair, makeup, deodorant, and bath products, for your big day. The last thing you want to worry about is trying to find the things you use right after landing at your destination wedding location.

You also don't want to throw off the equilibrium of your routine by introducing a new product into your rotation; keep it easy, keep it clean, and don't fret!