Budgeting + Destination Wedding

One of the best ways i’ve found to save money on our destination wedding was to find a venue that provided catering and a day-of coordinator. It is also a great idea to find a venue that is already beautiful without decor, or one that provides options for it. For example, our venue will be putting twinkle lights in the trees for us, as well as providing all the chairs for the ceremony, tables & chairs for the reception, as well as linens for the tables. The fewer vendors you need to work with, the better (and usually cheaper!). And the fewer the decorations, the better - either you will have to rent a large vehicle and drive them all there (then carry them into the hotel, carry them to the venue location the day of, unpack them all, set it all up, etc...) or you will pay a small fortune to ship it all there. So pick a venue that requires little to no extra decor, or a venue that provides decor options in-house. After much trial & error over the past year and a half, we’ve realized the lower maintenance the better with destination weddings!

View Quoted Comment Thank you, Chrysta! I did find a venue that is absolutely stunning (we want an outdoor wedding with foiliage and minimal decor). They offer catering, service staff, florist, a complimentary chamagane toast, day-of coordinator, all the linens and tableware, and they also offer decor. It sounds like they'd also make a cake, but I'm not sure. It also sounds like we would have to supply out own alcohol and bartender. I was going to call and get some more information, but I don't know if it is too early to call babies to ask questions...

"Question: What were some ways you guys were thrifty during a destination wedding, or ways to make DIY things without spending an arm and leg on postage to send them to the destination?"

Honestly one of the best ways to save money (after limiting the guest list) is to very carefully consider what "extras" are actually needed and decide to forgo most of them. All kinds of things are not really necessary and can really impact your budget in either direction: save the dates, proposal boxes, most decor, signs, other parties besides the reception, additional outfits, etc.

The bonus (besides saving money) is that the fewer DIY projects you take on, the less you will have to worry about getting to, setting up, and bringing home from the wedding

View Quoted Comment Great advice! Thank you. We are definitely limiting our guest list (max is 65), and no kids. To me the guest list is still a little too big, I'd like to get to 50. My sister does advertising and marketing and she's a photographer (and my MoH) so is is taking out "engagement" photos and creating our save the dates and invitations which is really nice. No parties other than a shower and bachelorette. Do you have any thoughts on doing DIY things from a distance and getting it all to the destination? My centerpieces I was going to do vases from micheals with flowers in it and floating candles. Should I buy online and ship to my parents house? They will be closest to the venue. Thank you all so much for answrr my million questions haha!! 💕

Keah, your venue sounds fantastic. We are also having a destination wedding, but at our destination, you have to pay for everything, chairs, tables, decor, food, venue, and bring your alcohol or have it in a hotel where they charge double. I found a wedding planner for $1200, and she's helping us find all the vendors, and she will be in charge of coordinating everything that day. From the day we told her our budget, for example we can spend $100 in total, but we want to start at $60 to have room to pay for more things if we're going to.

Also, I'm printing my save the dates and invitations and doing the guests' welcome bags.

View Quoted Comment Oh man! That sounded expensive at first, but that's awesome you found a wedding planner so cheap! I'm definitely printing my own save the dates and invitations. My sister and MOH is a graphic designer so she is helping me create them and print them out (she's also a long distance away up north). I know we are forgoing the programs as that's just an unnecessary and added expense.


You mentioned you're renting everything. Have you found it to be cheaper to rent everything separately, or find a venue that offers all of it? A lot of the venues I have found that we liked, and offer all table, chairs, linens etc. And either do catering or have specific vendors for it, cost an arm and a leg ($8,000 minimum) and/or have a $10,000 minimum budget for food and drinks (to which I close out of those because it's more of a money getting business than truly about a celebration of two families).

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My best friend is also a graphic designer and it has been so helpful!

We have a total of 295 guests, but it's an overseas destination wedding; we hope 180 can make it, but our wedding planner told us she has never seen a destination wedding with more than 100-120 people.

Yes and Not, for example, some venues come with chairs and tables, we are having our wedding in an old museum build in the 15th century in us dollars we pay $1,500; but we have to rent chairs and tables, each chair is $1.35; we will bring the catering ( the places that included chairs and table were charging 3 times for plate) and many venues ask you to buy the liquor with them (it's most of the time more expensive or pay a fee) but because we are renting this building, we can bring our alcohol and pay the bartenders for his service.

For my experience, yes it has been cheaper but we have a wedding planner so we dont have to deal with all the coordination and getting in touch with vendors