Are you hoping to create a wonderful wedding at jaw-dropping prices?  If so, Gilt Groupe is hoping to be a part of your wedding planning process.  The folks at Gilt have teamed up with Martha Stewart Weddings and her Wedding editor, Darcy Miller, to bring you everything you need to walk down the aisle and then some. Has the perfect wedding dress failed to materialize?  Is your groom still trying to find the right tux?  Have you had a hard time finding bridesmaid dresses that work for the shapes of all of your bridesmaids?  Trying to figure out what you’re going to wear in your hair?  For answers to all of these questions and more, check out Gilt this weekend?  Not a member of Gilt Groupe?  Shoot me an email and I’ll make sure you get you an invitation to this members only club.  The sale starts at 12pm EST – be there or be square.

Happy Shopping!

[image from Gilt Groupe]

• Hotel/resort site visits set-up? Check.
• Food tastings set-up? Check.
• Wine tastings set-up?  Check.
• Wedding Notebook? Check.
• List of questions for each hotel/resort? Check.
• Camera? Check.
• Cellphone? Check (make sure you’ve got international calling capabilities if traveling abroad).

As you prepare for a site visit to your destination of choice, use the list above as a handy guide to help with travel preparations.  If your fiance is unable to go on the site visit with you, bring your wedding planner if you are using one or ask a trusted friend or relative to join you.

Site visits are a great way to explore your potential wedding destination, but they’re by no means a vacation.  Keep your eyes and ears open from the moment you land at the airport in your city or country of choice.  Whatever you experience at the airport, in the rental car line or with the shuttle service is likely what your guests are going to experience.  Go into your meetings with hotel/resort personnel alert and filled with questions.  Site visits can be grueling – you’re going to be on your feet, walking the property, meeting with staff and taking in lots of information.  Hopefully, you’ll have a moment or two to unwind on the beach or at the spa, but it you don’t you won’t be the first who traveled to paradise and never set foot on the beach!

Your site visit is probably your one shot to get a good sense of where you are going to say I DO.  Take note of how you feel walking into the hotel/resort for the first time, imagine your friends and family upon their arrival. Will they love it, be disappointed or annoyed because the people at the reception desk are unfriendly? As much as your BIG DAY is about you and your fiance, it’s also about the people who are traveling to celebrate with you.

Take loads and loads of pictures.  You can’t have too many – hotels/resorts will start to look the same and memories will begin to fade the moment you board your flight to head home.  Having pictures of everything from the reception area to the guest rooms will help you make a cogent decision about which hotel/resort is right for you and your wedding.

If possible, try to narrow down your choices while you’re there.  If you’re doing site visits at 4 resorts in 3 days, the goal should be to narrow it down to 2 before you head home. It will be much easier to choose between 2 resorts than 4.  The law of averages dictates that out of the 4 there are probably 2 that will rise to the top for you.  It may be that the minimum amount required at the resort you thought you were going to love is higher than you’d budgeted for.  Or, although you really click with the Wedding Coordinator at one of the resorts, you don’t like anything else about the resort.

And lastly, before you leave, make sure to ask the Wedding Coordinators at each hotel/resort for the names and phone numbers of a few of the brides they’ve worked with to get a better sense of what your experience might be like at a particular venue.  Brides love to talk about their weddings, so don’t be shy about calling and asking the hard questions.

Good luck with your planning!  And enjoy your site visit – let me know how it goes.

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.

So you’ve decided you want to have a destination wedding because the  flexibility, freedom and fun associated with destination weddings appeals to you and your fiance.  And despite, the potential hidden costs, you’re game to keep your budget in check and your eyes on the prize.  You’re thinking a destination wedding is right for you and your intended because you guys (choose as many as apply):

• Like to travel,
• Hope to have an intimate wedding,
• Would like to celebrate your nuptials in an unusual setting,
• Would like to create your own wedding tradition,
• Have family and friends who live all over the country (or possibly all over the world), and
• Can focus on the big picture and are ok with not being completely hands-on during the planning process.

If this is all sounding good to you, then a destination wedding may be the way to go.  Now the work begins – finding the right locale.  A destination wedding is one that you and most of your guests will have to travel to, whether it’s in your hometown, Napa Valley or the Swiss Alps.  Finding the right destination is a three-part process.  First you have to choose your destination, then you have to find a hotel or resort and lastly, you have to choose a site (or sites) at the resort for your ceremony and reception.  There are a million ways to go about finding the right destination for your wedding – here are a few tips to help you narrow down your options as you do your recognaissance.

1. Research the locales you’re interested in online. Play around with sites like Orbitz or Kayak to get an idea of whether or not your family and friends will be able to get there easily without spending an arm and a leg.
2. Choose one or two locales to focus your efforts on and research the resorts and hotels in the area.  Narrow your choices down to 3 – 5 resorts/hotels per locale (city/country).
3. Find out if each resort/hotel has a Wedding Coordinator/Planner and what this person’s role will be at your wedding.
4. Review the resort/hotel’s Wedding Package and jot down any questions you may have.  If the package isn’t available online, call to request it.  The catering menu, along with the beverages menu, should be included in the package.  A good package will clearly spell out what is and is not included in the cost of the ceremony – flowers, officiant and the like.  It’s not the end of the world if a package is light on information – this may mean that you’ll have some flexibility in the planning process.
5. Then call or email the resort/hotel to:

• Get an understanding of the resort/hotel’s Room Block policy.
• Find out where the resort/hotel typically has rehearsal dinners, wedding ceremonies and receptions.  Ask the resort/hotel to send you pictures of weddings held at the resort.
• Find out if the resort/hotel can accommodate a wedding like the one you’re envisioning.
• Find out if your wedding date is available.

Keep detailed notes of your impressions and conversations with the resorts/hotels in your Wedding Notebook (I guarantee you that your Groom-to-Be will ask you about a 1000 times, “didn’t you write that down?!?!”, so write it down).  Narrow down your choices; sometimes the decisions are made for you because the resort you have fallen in love with is going to be closed for renovations during your time-frame, the hotel is booked on your date or while you thought it would be a great place to get married, the cost to get married there exceeds your budget.

Now it’s time to call the resorts and hotels you’ve chosen to set up your site visits. A word to the wise, while you may be going to paradise or one of the most fabulous cities in the world for a long weekend, a site visit is work. Three resorts/hotels in 2.5  days is a bit dizzying, but can be done!   More on destination weddings next week …. Stay tuned.

Where are you thinking about tying the knot?

[image from Luvtrip]

Does your family have a wedding tradition that’s been passed on from generation to generation?  Not necessarily a cultural tradition, but a family tradition that your mom’s mom and  your mom did on their wedding days and now you are going to do on your wedding day?  Does your family have a garter that’s been passed down from generation to generation?  Maybe it’s wearing your mother’s wedding dress a la The Proposal or carrying one of your grandmother’s handkerchiefs in your bouquet somehow.  Is there a family Bible used for all family wedding ceremonies? Adding a piece of familial history to your wedding day can help to make your BIG DAY even more special.  If you don’t have a family wedding tradition, think about creating one that can be passed down to your children and grandchildren.

Here’s a family wedding tradition that I thought was really nice –  I have a friend who is the youngest in a family of 3 girls; each sister wore the same veil when she got married.  Right after the last wedding, the first child was born to one of the sisters.  The sisters agreed to have their veil made into a Christening gown that each of their collective 5 children were Christened in.  The veil/Christening gown is now on it’s third generation of children in the family.

What’s your family wedding tradition?

Pretty in Pink!

Inspiration is defined as the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions. Inspiration boards do just that; they allow you to convey your vision, or inspiration if you will, to all involved with your wedding planning process.  Your team of wedding professionals – planner, photographer, florist, graphic designer, stationer, musician, videographer, event designer, event planner, etc – is well-versed in the ins and outs of helping couples get to I DO.  Clear visual direction, information and ideas from the Bride and Groom help to make their lives easier and your wedding the one you’ve created in your head.  Taking the time to flip through a few bridal magazines (or even home decor magazines) as well as browsing through some bridal websites like theknot, Martha Stewart Weddings and Brides is a great way to get ideas for your BIG DAY. As you peruse, think about what your colors will be, which flowers you’d like to have, what sort of bouquet you’ll carry, what kind of music you plan to walk down the aisle to and so on.  Create an inspiration board online easily like the one above using Mosaic Maker.  Or, if you’re like me and a little technologically challenged, take pages from magazines or printed off the internet to create an Inspiration Binder.  If time is of the essence or you just don’t have the inclination to read about the latest in wedding themes and colors, check out snippet&ink for beautiful inspiration boards to spark your imagination.  Whatever you choose to do, remember that your wedding vendors are not mind readers.  The more visual information you give them the more you can be certain everything will look exactly as you envisioned it when you walk down the aisle!

[images from left to right:   Louella Press, Brian Atwood, JCrew, Martha Stewart Weddings, Martha Stewart Weddings, Martha Stewart Weddings, Wedding Cakes by Kim Payne and Brides]

Every bride should feel extra special on her wedding day.  Finding the right dress is key, but the accessories you choose to wear with it can take you from Blushing Bride to Breathtaking Bride.  I learned about Tejani’s bridal jewelry when a good friend was planning her wedding.  I thought the jewelry was stunning and I made a mental note to myself that when I got ready to say I DO, Tejani would be part of my wedding day ensemble.  All of Tejani’s jewelry is handcrafted by artisans in Mumbai, India.  As a result, it’s unique and customizable – from sizing to insure the bracelets and bangles fit you perfectly to allowing you to choose the stones as well as metal finishes on much of their bridal collection.  Prices range from $75 -$400.

Starting January 23rd, the folks at Tejani are hitting the road.  You can see the bridal collection in person at their trunk shows in the following cities:

• Miami – January 23rd
• Dallas – February 6th
• Washington, D.C. – February 27th
• Boston – March 6th
• Chicago – March 20th

To set up an online appointment, click here.  If you happen to live in New York or are planning a trip to New York, schedule an appointment to stop by their New York show room.

Your Tejani experience will leave you with visions of bangles, bracelets, necklaces and earrings dancing in your head!

[image from Tejani]

Ready to send your Save the Dates or invites out, but frustrated because you can only find 44 cent customized stamps online? The folks at Zazzle to the rescue!  Zazzle offers customized stamps in 8 different denominations:

• $0.28: postcards
• $0.44: First-class, 1 oz
• $0.64: 1 oz mailings, unusual shapes
• $0.61: 2 oz mailings
• $0.78: 3 oz mailings
• $0.95: 3.5 oz mailings
• $1.39: 4 oz mailings
• $4.95: upto 16 oz for Priority mailings

Customize your stamps with whatever your heart desires – a photo, your logo or motif, your monogram, your favorite flower, the options are endless and the end result is a lovely detail that will make your wedding stationery suite standout.

So, how much postage do you need?  If you’re sending a postcard, it’s kind of a no-brainer but for anything else — your Save the Dates and your actual invitations (the invitation, the RSVP card, directions and anything else being included in the invitation) — take the entire invitation with you to the Post Office to have it weighed so that you know exactly how much postage it requires.  Then, choose the design for your custom stamps and place your order.  When ordering customized stamps, make sure you choose stamps that are the right size for your envelope (small, medium or large as well as horizontal vs. vertical).  Zazzle does a fairly quick turn-around, but don’t wait until the last minute to order your stamps.  The downside of customized stamps is the cost.  A sheet of 20 LOVE stamps from the Post Office costs $8.80, a sheet of 20 customized stamps from Zazzle starts at $17.95.  You do the math and decide if the price of customization is worth the extra special detail to you.

So, when should all of these mailings take place?

• Save the Dates should be mailed 4 to 6 months before the wedding.
• Wedding Invitations 6 to 8 weeks before the wedding.
• Wedding Announcements should be sent out the day of the wedding.

For postage etiquette from A to Z on topics ranging from dealing with divorced parents, determining whose names should be on the invitation and all the other pertinent information to be included, how to address your envelopes, and how to properly stuff your wedding invitations check out the following websites: Invitation Advice and WedAlert.  And if you’re in New York, check out The Stationery Library at The Wedding Library or Kate’s Paperie for beautiful invites and everything you wanted to know about wedding stationery and then some.

Are they necessary?  No.  Are the helpful?  Yes.

Wedding websites are perfect for destination weddings.  Remember, destination weddings are not only those in some exotic sunny locale; if you live in Chicago and are saying “I Do” there too, but most of your family and friends are traveling to Chicago for the big event, you are having a destination wedding.  So, why go through the hassle of setting up a wedding website?

1. A wedding website will provide your guests with pertinent information about your wedding — event times, gift registry, hotel options, etc.;
2. A wedding website will give your out-of-town family and friends an opportunity to be a part of your planning process;
3. If you take the time to upload pictures of your family and friends, a wedding website will give your guests a chance to meet one another virtually before arriving at your wedding; and
4. A wedding website will lessen the amount of phone calls and emails you get from family and friends asking questions about event times, your gift registry, travel arrangements and the like.  Honestly, they’ll still call but you can deftly direct them to your wedding website!

So, how do you find the right wedding website?  There are a ton out there, some are free and some aren’t (average cost is about $60).  All have some sort of free trial and a bunch of interesting templates to choose from.  Every wedding website contains essentially the same components — Greeting, Bride’s Story, Groom’s Story, Our Engagement Story, Gift Registry, Guest Book, Guest Information, Wedding Party, and Photo Albums.

A word-to-the-wise, while almost all of these sites are very easy to set-up and permit a great deal of customization, set-aside a good chunk of time (at least one evening or weekend afternoon) to upload your photos and information. Create your wedding website shortly after you get engaged to minimize the amount of time you spend focused on your wedding website once the wedding planning really begins.

Free wedding websites:  the knot, Wedding Jojo, Wedding Wire, Project Wedding.

Paid wedding websites:  Wedding Window, Wedsite, E-Wedding, nearlywed.

[image from www.zmweb.com]

Wooo hooo!!!! You’ve secured the church (temple, hall or wherever you plan to say I Do), you’ve made a deposit on your wedding/reception venue which means you finally have your wedding date.  Now, you need to let your friends and family know when and where The BIG Day will be.  Once you figure out who you’re inviting, you’ve gotta make sure you give them advance notice of your wedding date so that they can Save the Date.  There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to let folks know when your wedding is going to take place . . . but let’s just say that an Evite, while a useful invitation for lots of events, may not exactly set the right tone.  Your Save the Date is the first glimpse your guests will get into your wedding.  Be creative, this is an opportunity for you as a couple to give your friends and family a sense of your style as a couple. Fun photos, magnets, coasters, postcards from the city you’re getting married in, a map, vintage hankies stamped with your names and date, bookmarks, custom letterpress cards, cards using a motif or logo specifically designed for you are just a few of the many ways to express your creativity and get your guests excited about coming to celebrate your nuptials.  Spend some time at a stationery store or two, think about your color or colors, the font you want to use and your overall theme as you choose your Save the Dates.  My grandmother always said, “if you’re going to do something, do it ‘right’.”  My twist on her mantra is, “if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it stylishly!”

[top image by Kyle Hanks & bottom image from  A Sweet Life]