Cross Country Wedding Planning

Hi Erin! I live in Connecticut and we’re planning a small destination wedding on the Oregon Coast so I can totally relate. Only 19 days to go!!

That’s great that you you already have a venue! What exactly are you looking for help with? Does the venue have other vendors they can recommend? I’d also highly suggest looking into a local Oregon coordinator to help! I started out contacting and hiring vendors myself and even with a very small wedding, felt like I needed someone local to help with all the details and coordination!

In this case, hiring a wedding coordinator would be a huge plus. They'll be able to make recommendations on vendors and then take over the planning the month before the wedding.

Hi Erin! Is there a particular reason you are getting married in Oregon? I've heard it's beautiful out there!! Agreeing with the others, I would try to find a wedding coordinator who is local to where your venue is who can help you get the remaining vendors! Then when you head out there for the wedding he/she will have everything under control and ready for your big day

View Quoted Comment Congratulations!! I love the Oregon Coast! ❤️
The venue has a list of preferred vendors, but we want to check on the food, music, etc. we also have a lot of local friends who have offered to help, I’m just not sure how to delegate or even what to delegate.
We have been toying around with the idea of a wedding coordinator, glad to hear so many people recommending that!
Did you plan a wedding planning trip where you went out to OR and just check all the vendors or was it all the wedding coordinator?
Thank you!

View Quoted Comment My fiancé and I met in Oregon and our families are mostly West Coast based. We’re both actors so NYC is where we need to be right now, but our hearts are in the Pacific North West. I highly recommend visiting. It is absolutely incredible.
Is a coordinator the same as a wedding planner or even a day of coordinator?
Thank you!

If you can afford a wedding coordinator, I'd get one. If not, I'd reach out to vendors you like and decide on your top 2-3, then take a trip out there and meet them all and decide.

I second the advice to narrow down a list of vendors and take a trip to do tastings, etc. I grew up in Washington state and we're getting married there, but we live in New Jersey so we've also been planning long -distance. My first trip was in January to select a venue, then we both flew out in March to select a caterer, let my FH see the venue and narrow down some details, meet our officiant, and meet with a photographer. I'm heading back in September to meet with my DOC (so happy I hired one!) and probably the ceremony musicians as well as make any needed changes to the rehearsal dinner, etc. Then we'll return in October for the wedding!

You might not need that many trips, but I do suggest e-mails or phone calls with potential vendors before going out to Oregon. Having narrowed most of our choices down to 2 or 3 was very helpful to us.

Reviews reviews reviews. Read everything. We're planning a wedding in Florida from NYC and I've relied so heavily on WW reviews. I've only booked vendors that have 0 bad reviews. Except for our venue, we didn't go down there to meet with anyone. We've trusted our judgment based on research and phone calls.

Accept that unless you take a planning trip, you won't get to taste your wedding cake or have a HMU trial. You just have to trust what others say and that everything will be good the day of.

You really need two things to make a destination wedding work:

1. Simplify as much as possible.

2. Reconcile yourself to the fact that unpredictable things will happen, and resolve to enjoy your day anyway.

With those two things being said, it is actually much easier to plan a wedding long distance than it used to be. My first wedding, we needed lots of help to find vendors in the area where we were getting married. The Internet hadn't been invented yet. So we couldn't see pictures of venues, flowers, etc. We couldn't see reviews. Contacting vendors involved getting a copy of the local Yellow Pages and making expensive long distance phone calls.

Second wedding was much easier. We didn't even visit the area before we arrived for our ceremony. We were able to see everything from pictures of our venues and accommodations, to a video of the rabbi, online. We e-mailed back and forth with the rabbi. We found bouquets on Teleflora. We found accommodations on VRBO. We found a photographer on Craigslist, then checked out his website to see if we liked his work. We found our hair and make-up person on Craigslist, then checked out reviews. We used online contact forms, e-mail, and phone calls (now free) to set things up.

With regard to simplifying, you can go one of two ways. The first is to do as much one-stop shopping as possible. For example, you could use a restaurant for your reception, instead of having separate vendors for venue, food, beverages, cake, rentals, etc. The second is to hire a wedding planner with knowledge of local vendors.

But ultimately, you'll have less control if your wedding is a long way away. So you just have to remember that if little things go wrong, it's no big deal. So long as you end up married, any other glitches will just end up being funny stories you'll tell your grandchildren.

View Quoted Comment We relied on our own research to find our reception venue, photographer, and videographer. I did thorough research on all reviews on all platforms, FaceTimed for consultations, stalked them on social media (🤣) and talked with many vendors before making our final choices.

As we started looking for an officiant and florist I started to realize my small destination wedding had just as many vendors as a traditional wedding and I didn’t want the stress of me or one of my family members having to coordinate and direct them the day of. This is when I started looking into wedding coordinators and found one who specializes in intimate weddings. She will be officiating our wedding, decorating our ceremony space including handling rentals, providing the bouquet, and coordinating our vendors. This was a win-win for us! It simplified a potential for many vendors into one and it has given me such a piece of mind. She recommended several HMUA’s which was the last outstanding vendor I had on my list.

In todays day and age with technology, I don’t think you need to take a trip out there but if you have the means and time to and you feel strongly about it, it certainly won’t hurt! I happened to have a business trip in Oregon so I did get out there to do a HMU trial.