Destination Wedding - HELP!!!

I had to do something similar for our cruise. For us to have a group and group rate we had to have 8 rooms booked within 30 days. I got STD's and sent them out right away and called and harassed my family that I knew were going to come and told them they had to book and put down there deposit. Did the same with my BM's. After I met our minimum, people can still book just not get the set rate that I had but will be with our group. I am not sure if resorts are the same. I did book 1 persons deposit but she paid me back already. I stressed but it all worked out.

Are you stating your guests must book their hotel room 60 days before your event to get a discounted rate?

If so, just tell your guests that. I have that info (mine is 30 days though) on my invitation and website. It is not my responsibility to make sure my guests are responsible enough to make their reservations. I would not pay for my guests deposits/room because it's still not a financial consequence to them if they decide not to come.

If you're asking something else, I don't understand.

I agree with Meghan. Please do not offer to pay deposits for any of your guests.

We did something similar to you. Started the big wedding plans at home and then scrapped them all for a DW. Its been great and I wouldn't change a thing but if you search on DW sites or threads the one thing you will find in common is the number of guests/family that are really excited from the start and then when the time comes to commit they decide they can't afford it or can't take the time off of work. The only thing I stress about right now is who is coming and who isn't, but that is my problem. Ultimately if FH and I are there it will be great.

If you do decide to go with the resorts that have a 60 policy I would wait and book a little closer to your date and concentrate on your venue and vendors first.

Can you try booking through a travel agent instead? That is what we are doing. We are have a DW in Jamaica and booked with a travel agent. We are going through US Airways Vacations our guests put down a $150 deposit per person, when they book to lock in their rates, if they wait the prices may go up, but that would be on them. We are not paying the deposits for guests ahead of time because we had TONS of people say they were going especially in the begining, and now that it comes time to actually pay and book they have changed their mind. I found this to be the easiest for everyone, plus I have a point of contact so I don't have to chase people.

Oh I forgot lol the best part about doing it this way is that our guest have up until 45 days before the wedding to make payments or pay the balance in full, which all of our guest appreciated!

As a bride getting married on a cruise ship, I found that the best rates that we were able to get were from the cruise line itself, rather than with a travel agent. Just like Meghan stated before, my guest have 30 days from the date that we developed our group travel for our guests to book. We also had a 8 room minimum, and I put a total of 20 rooms on reserve. Because I didn't want to do anything tacky (like create a flyer or send a text), I went to vista print and created my STDs with the link to our WW website and the password. On my website VERY DETAILED information was posted on the ships itinerary, information on each destination, and all payment and travel arrangement information. I have kept in contact with the cruise line and they let me know that we can extend the time limitation to book the vacation as long as I call a few days before the due date. I sent out the STDs Wednesday. So I want to extend the due date until June 16th. I will NOT be paying for anyone's room though.

I agree, never pay for anyone else's room that far in advance. Dealing with your own financials is hard enough as it is. Add other people's money in the mix and here comes the family drama!

You are trying to make this easier since you decided on a DW, don't make it more stressful. Just be grateful for the people who can attend : )

Hey Robyn! I had a destionation wedding and I loved it! I think you'll find it to be the best choice (besides the groom) that you can make! My wedding was easy to plan, I had all my guest travel arrangements organized by someone other than me and I had peace of mind with the whole thing! I used Destinationweddings.com so I can vouch that they are truely a legit company! All I can do is recommend them to anyone who may need help planning a destinationwedding. As fas as pricing goes, rest assure they will get u and ur guest the best deal, you should have to pay for any of your guests unless you want to! Their payment plan option was a huge bonus for my guest and I!!!! Check out their website! They rock! I'm sure you will agree once you read some testimonials... Best of luck!

I have a lot of the arrangements made it's just making sure people get there deposits in, I guess all I can do is let them know..

I actually used DestinationWeddings.com and my guests had quite a while to put deposits down. Plus the full payment wasn't due until 45 days prior to the guests arrival. If you can, I highly recommend their services!!

Firstly, you made the right choice by going the destination wedding route. You will not regret it. If you feel that some people are missing out, you can always have a simple at home reception. The best part about that is you can wear your dress twice!

The planning portion and travel arrangements are probably the toughest and most stressful part of the destination wedding process. I found destinationweddings.com and used them to assist with booking travel. They were fantastic! They offer payment plans for the guests and a very reasonable deposit that is affordable for your guests to commit. From there they can pay bit by bit as the date approaches which makes saving and allocating funds really easy. On top of that, their service offers 24/7 support while you're in transit and travelling, so if anything goes wrong on any flight for any guest out of any location you know that destinationweddings.com will stop at nothing to ensure they make it on time for your special day.

The destination wedding, without a doubt, is the way to go. It's different and it'll be more memorable. You'll have a better time than going to your standard ballroom at a hotel and having prom chicken.

The group that helped us with ours was destinationweddings.com. They were awesome with the set up and it was the best $50 we spent on our wedding and they'll make it easy. We picked our location - El Dorado Maroma in Cancun. That's the most difficult part is picking the location. If you did that, then you should be ok.

The invitations do seem like a huge task - and they are - but one step at a time. You can print them up yourself - which is what we did - and mail them out right away. Should take you a week, at the most. (Unless one of you is too picky then 2 weeks.)

But, without a doubt, make sure to use destinationweddings.com. We had an unfortunate issue with a hurricane that delayed our departure by a couple days. They were on top of it completely! Good Luck!

WOOHOO!!!!!!!! Your planning experience sounds exactly like ours! I don't know about you, but our guests were soooo excited to make a vacation out of it on top of our wedding so it wasn't just the financial obligation but the time commitment required to go on such a trip.

It looks like several others have used destinationweddings.com too and had the same experience as we did... we started looking at a local travel agent because our guests were most familiar with going into a travel agent's office, but they just couldn't compare to the flexibility and convenience of using destinationweddings.com.

In the end, this need to find the right travel arrangement also lead to a very convenient planning of our wedding too... the travel coordinator was there with me the whole time to make sure the wedding coordinator at the resort was doing everything I needed her to.

Happy planning!!!! We are celebrating our 1 year anniversary on Monday. May is a great month to get married!!!

Hi Robyn,

A group deposit is not your only option for a destination weddings. It is true that when booking group rates directly with a resort, the full deposit will need to be paid within 60 days. This is the old school way of booking groups (in my opinion). A lot of reputable travel wholesalers offer flexible deposits for destination wedding guests, which will allow your guests to confirm their reservations as they please, but also receive the group discount. You have enough to worry about with planning your wedding, so there is no reason why you should have to cover the deposit for your guests.

Please feel free to contact us if you have questions or would like additional information. Thanks!

Hi Robyn,

I was in your same boat about a year and a half ago. My husband & I decided we wanted to do a destination wedding and our guests had 60 days to put down a deposit. However, not all of your guests need to put down the deposit to reserve the group rate, we used destinationweddings.com and they helped us with our group of about 50 people. We only needed about 10 rooms to be booked with a deposit in order to reserve the rate. I would definitely recommend destinationweddings.com, they were amazing planning our entire wedding weekend and made my life a little easier. Hope this advice helps and best of luck planning!

Have no fear Robyn, here's what you need to do! Just like as posted above, I used destinationweddings.com and it solved the deposit issue for many of my guests. You only need to have 10 rooms put in their deposits to secure your rate and then your last minute guests will be able to take their time with their deposits. Not to mention, that the deposit is only actually for the airline, not the hotel, and destinationweddings.com offers a payment plan with no fees. So, as long as they can put in a reasonable deposit to secure their space, they can go ahead and make payments throughout the whole year so they can ensure they aren't hit with a large lump sum payment all at once. It's the most convinient and ideal situation when it comes to destination weddings. In addition to the great payment plan options, their service was top notch and all of my guests raved about the ease of booking travel, the resort and the wedding itself. Good luck with your planning!!!

When my wife and I decided to get married, we picked an organization to help us. DestinationWeddings.com. They were awesome. They found ways for us to save and made planning the wedding so easy!!! We eloped so unfortunately, I don't have experience to quote you.

However, contact DestinationWeddings.com. I know it sounds like a commercial but we loved the help we received. They really went above and beyond at every step. The coordinator we used - Maureen - helped us deal with a lot of issues, including a hurricane that decided to come in and delay our departure.

Good Luck!

We had to do the same thing and sent out the Save the Date via email... we used the services of Destinationweddings.com which provided us with a free website that worked out to be one of the BEST THINGS EVER! I was able to keep all of our guests informed and was even able to send useful tips as the date approached.

We had some guests who didn't put their deposit down within the 60 days but that wasn't a problem since the resort wasn't filling up.

My recommendation... send the Save the Weekend email, save the dates, and then the invitations.

Good luck!!! Have fun!