The countdown is on.  Your invitations are in the mail, the date is set for your bridal shower, your vendor deposits have been paid and the details for the events during your wedding weekend are coming together nicely.  Great.  One quick question – Do you know what you’re wearing to your rehearsal dinner?

Most brides focus on style at the beginning of the planning process when looking for the perfect wedding dress.  Once that item is crossed off her list it’s on to bigger and better things like food tastings, flower selection, practicing her first dance with her fiance and choosing a DJ. And then a few weeks before the wedding, as the bride-to-be is going through her Bridal Checklist and patting herself on the back, it hits her that she has absolutely nothing to wear to her bridal shower, welcome cocktail party or the rehearsal dinner that she’s spent so much time planning to a “T”.

To insure that you don’t find yourself in this predicament, add finding outfits for your wedding events to your “TO DO” list.  You’re definitely going to do a hair trial and a make-up trial, right?  Those are scheduled in to your countdown to the BIG DAY calendar.  Schedule in time to shop.  If you’re getting married on the beach in November, you can’t wait until October to begin shopping because while you’ve got visions of sunshine and pina coladas in your head, the stores around you do not. And if you’re getting married right down the street and don’t have to worry about climate changes, you still have to worry about being able to find the outfit you had in your head at the stores in your area (or online in your size).

So, do you need a team to help you look your best for your BIG DAY?  Absolutely! Glam Squads are not the province of the rich and famous; everyone deserves to be pampered during this momentous time in her life.  No one says your Glam Squad has to be filled with pricey experts, although I’m not mad at you if it is  . . . Your Glam Squad may consist of your mom who’s great with hair, your sister who’s an amateur make-up artist and your best friend who’s styled you for every other major event in your life up to this moment.  I was part of  a pretty fabulous Glam Squad that one of my clients put together for her blowout Jamaican wedding week last year.  It was so much fun to help her make her vision come true!

Compile your Glam Squad with care; make sure that the individuals you choose will be able to carve out the time for trials as well as time on your actual wedding day. Give them advance notice whether they’re traveling down the street to the church or across the Atlantic to your wedding destination.  And then, to the extent you can allow yourself to do so, trust that the experts (friends and family or otherwise) to do their jobs.

And if finding something to wear to your rehearsal dinner is beginning to seem insurmountable, Wedding STYLE by Kalyn Johnson will be glad to become a part of your Glam Squad and help you find the perfect outfit!

Why should you go shopping for wedding dresses when the wedding dresses can come to you?  Net-a-Porter just re-launched it’s Wedding Boutique for fashion conscious brides who want to look good on the BIG DAY, but don’t necessarily want to be bothered with all of the pomp and circumstance associated with buying a wedding dress.   I think it’s genius!  Not surprisingly, Net-a-Porter is not offering your run of the mill wedding dresses.  Their Wedding Boutique dresses are really quite FAB with a roster of designers that will make even the most jaded fashionista salivate — Lanvin, Temperly London, Chole, Alberta Ferretti, Fendi and Mathew Williamson to name a few.

And if it’s in stock, the dress ships right out to you.  Heck, if you’re in London or New York they’ll messenger your frock directly to you.  Now, that’s service for you! If you go the traditional route and purchase your wedding dress from a bridal boutique or store, it typically takes anywhere from 6 – 8 weeks for it to arrive. Questions?  They’ve got a group of Fashion Advisors ready willing and able to take your calls or emails to help you with everything from the proper undergarments for your chosen dress to the overall look of your wedding day ensemble.  They’ll even help your mom, his mom and your bridesmaids if you want them to.  And yes, returns are possible if the dress of your dreams turns out to be a nightmare.  So, fret no more, finding the perfect wedding dress is literally just a click away!

[image courtesy of Temperley London]

Rock the frock!

What?!?!? Are you crazy?  Debase your beautiful wedding gown for a few pictures? Sure, why not?  Here’s the thing – is your daughter really going to want to wear your wedding dress?  Did you want to wear your mom’s wedding gown?  So, what makes more sense?  Spending at least another $500 to preserve your wedding dress for prosperity? (Not to mention finding some place to store it) Or, spend  another $500-$1000 to trash it in a fun photo shoot and have beautiful artistic pictures to remember your  BIG DAY by?

The Trash the Dress trend, or Rock the Frock, began with Las Vegas based wedding photographer John Michael Cooper and has taken the wedding industry by storm. There are websites dedicated to helping you figure out the best way to trash your dress if you are so inclined …  As one bride told me, she absolutely loves her TD photos and she’s hanging her them in her new house instead of the photos from her actual wedding ceremony.  When I asked her why, she replied, “because they’re so cool and the photo shoot was soooo much fun!”.  It’s her perogative and yours too.

[image courtesy of ctcphotography]

I got married in the Mexican Riviera a few months ago and I’m happy to report that I’m still on my honeymoon high!  The planning process was definitely an adventure, but we had a great team behind us and everything went off without a hitch.  I planned my wedding for 8 months and now I write about weddings weekly, along with styling destination brides, so you tell me – I’m either a little bit crazy or a little bit nuts.   Nevertheless, I’m glad to be a part of your journey!

Back to the topic at hand.  I live in New York and weddings here cost a pretty penny. I, like most brides, thought that a destination wedding would be cheaper, right? Well, not right and not wrong.  It depends on what kind of destination wedding you want to have.  One of the best destination weddings I’ve ever been to was my sister’s wedding in Montego Bay, Jamaica.  As close as we are, my sister and I are more opposite than alike.  I’m Type A and she’s totally laaaaaaaid-back.  She chose The Ritz Carlton in Montego Bay because I’d been there and I liked it (I’m more picky than she is) and hey, it was The Ritz Carlton.  She’d never been to Jamaica and didn’t physically see the resort until she arrived in Montego Bay a few days before her BIG DAY.  I visited two countries – Mexico and Turks & Caicos (we were planning our wedding at the height of the swine flu epidemic) – and 7 resorts before choosing our wedding locale.  Do you see where this is going?  Suffice it to say, your wedding will be whatever it is that you want it to be whether near or far.  However, if you choose the far option (regardless of size, dollars or time spent planning from afar) there are hidden costs.  This list is not exhaustive, I’m sure I’ll think of a few things after I post this and have to do an addendum at a later point, but it’s meant to give you an idea of some costs to factor into your wedding budget.

1. Mental – The mental costs area going to be different for each couple, but rest assured they’ll be there.  My brother-in-law was totally stressed out about the Jamaican DJ they hired and met with; his fears subsided at the reception when people started dancing before the food was served.  Much of the decor for our wedding weekend was held up in customs prior to our arrival in Mexico, 7 totally stressful days and too many dollars later our boxes were released the day before we landed in Mexico.
2. Wedding Stationery/Collateral – In addition to your Save-the-Dates, the actual invitations, programs and menus, you may opt to have welcome notes and/or weekend itinerary designed and printed.
3. Wedding Gift Bags – I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding where a favor wasn’t given, but I’ve certainly never been to a destination wedding where some sort of gift bag or basket wasn’t in my room waiting for me upon my arrival.  Of  course, I never thought about the hoops the bridal couple had to jump through to have that lovely token waiting for ‘lil ole me.  In addition to the cost of the gift bag/basket and the goodies inside, some hotels/resorts charge up to $7 per gift bag to deliver them to your guests’ rooms.  You can attempt to skirt this issue by delivering them yourself or asking the reception desk to hand them out as guests check in, just be aware that this is sometimes easier said than done.
4. Credit Card Payments – If getting married in a foreign country, before charging your deposit find out if the hotel/resort is going to charge your credit card in US dollars or their currency.  If the charges are going to be in a foreign currency, call your credit card company to find out what they’re going to charge you to do the conversion.  If you’re charging a large enough amount, you may be able to negotiate the percentage down a few tenths or so.  Every little bit helps!
5. Service Fees – Many large hotels/resorts will add a straight percentage for the service fee, anywhere from 10-15%, on top of the total dollar amount spent on your wedding.  In theory, this money goes to the staff at the resort. In practice, who knows.  (One bride told me she had the resort confirm in her contract that the staff who worked her wedding would receive the service fee . . . definitely worth a try).
6. Tips – So, you’ve paid the Service Fee and now you have to tip too? Yup.  If you’re lucky enough to get married at a hotel where the staff, from top to bottom, take care of you and your guests you should tip them accordingly. I’ll save tipping your vendors for another posting – I’ll let you digest this for the time-being.
7. Wine – If you, or your spouse-to-be, are a wine enthusiast, it might be important to you to serve wine that’s more than quaffable.  Some hotels will have a fantastic wine list for you to choose from and others will not.  Some will have a fantastic wine list, but none of the wines will be available.  You may decide to BYOB.  No worries, most hotels/resorts will indulge you for a small corkage fee that can range anywhere from $15 – $35 per bottle.  If you’re getting married abroad, BYOB is complicated by the TSA 3oz rule.  It is fairly easy to send crates of wine if the international shipping laws allow it (but it may get stuck in customs, see #1 above), but it’s also fairly easy to bubble wrap wine and stow it in suitcases.  Again, check your country’s customs website to determine how much wine each person can bring into the country and then beg, plead and bribe your guests to make room in their suitcases for your hooch.
8. Wedding Planner – Nowadays, just about any hotel or resort you’d seriously consider for a destination wedding will have, at a minimum, an Events Coordinator if not a full blown Wedding Planning department. Depending on your level of comfort with the resort’s personnel, as well as your desire to be an intimate part of the planning process, you may consider hiring an outside Wedding Planner.  Wedding Planners and their complement of services come in all shapes and sizes and price ranges. If you do decide to hire an outside Wedding Planner, talk to brides he or she has worked with previously to get a good sense of how helpful they are going to be throughout your planning process.
9. Additional Events – Weddings typically consist of a rehearsal dinner for the bridal party, families of the bridal couple and out-of-town guests; the wedding ceremony and reception.  Destination weddings, however, usually take things up a notch by, at a minimum, increasing the size of the rehearsal dinner to include all invited guests.  Some couples also choose to have a welcome cocktail party or a brunch the day after the wedding; and in some instances a cocktail hour between the ceremony and reception to keep the afternoon or evening flowing.  Oh, and the after parties.  If you’ve got a particularly gregarious crowd, they may want to party on beyond an event’s end-time.  This may be on your dime or theirs, it may be in the hotel lobby, your suite or a bar down the street – just keep the possibility of an after party in mind as you create your budget.
10. Additional Decor & Flowers - Some hotels and resorts have flower packages for your to choose from, others have local florists to recommend; all will increase whatever the basic options are for a fee.  Decor may not be as easy depending on your chosen locale, but many resorts and hotels are in beautiful settings and may not need much more additional embellishment.  Again, if you want it, you can have it for an additional fee (see #1 above).
11. Travel Costs –  Destination weddings are great, but they’re expensive for all involved.  If you can afford it, you may decide to help out attendants and guests who have limited funds by subsidizing a portion of their travel costs.
12. Legal Ceremony – Research the cost of a legal ceremony in your chosen locale.  In Mexico, for example, it costs approximately $3K for a legal ceremony.  We decided to have a religious ceremony in Mexico and got legally hitched in New York a few weeks later.
13. Vendors – Finding vendors in your destination spot may be extremely easy or it may be challenging and frustrating depending on your locale and your tastes.  Many destination bridal couples fly in vendors to help make their special days seamless and memorable – chefs, DJs, photographers, henna artists, musicians, hair stylists, and make-up artists to name a few.
14. Open Bar – Alcohol is expensive.  You’ll have to decide if you want pay “on-consumption”, i.e. the amount you pay is based on how many drinks each guest consumes during a particular event (who keeps count? good question – ask this one at your site visit), or if you’d prefer to pay a flat-rate per person per hour.  Figuring out which calculation works best for you requires a good sense of your guests’ drinking habits and some mental gymnastics. Whatever you decide, it’ll all work itself out, just know that this is an area that can definitely add a few dollars to your final bill.
15. Charges for Use of Ceremony and/or Reception Venues.  Yes, you’re bringing money to the hotel/resort and yes, they may tell you there’s a fee to use one of their ballrooms or restaurants.  This may be a fee you can get them to waive, but don’t be surprised if it shows up in your initial contract.

Hopefully, this list will help you to create a sound weddding budget and prevent surprises from cropping up as you make your way to I DO.  Congrats to you and yours on the life adventure you’re about to embark on!

Questions?  Fire away.  If I don’t have an answer for you, I’ll help you find one.

And if you had a destintation wedding or are in the middle of planning one, please weigh in with any hidden costs you may have stumbled upon.