Destination weddings! Tips, advice?

I did a DW. Husband and I live in DC and we got married in upstate NY. My mom lives in upstate NY in a small town right on Lake Ontario, so we got married in her town. It wasn't a DW for her or my extended family up there, but it was for us, our friends and husband's family. Granted, his family in AZ and we have friends ALL over (we had folks from 12 states at the wedding), so people would have had to travel no matter where we got married. We mostly got married up there b/c of the cost. We would have spent double to have the same wedding in DC (venue, caterer, professional photographer etc.) I have absolutely no regrets! We arranged for our friends and family to stay in cottages in the town, so about 40 people came up for 3-5 days before the wedding. My mom got a keg for the weekend, had the RD at her house, and we partied all weekend. It was a BLAST. Everyone still talks about my wedding and how much fun it was. My mom did some venue touring, and I went up the month before to finalize everything but it wasn't very difficult to plan from far away. It was more expensive for our DC friends to attend b/c they had to travel, but for everyone who would have been traveling to DC anyways, it was about the same amount b/c lodging was SO MUCH cheaper.

I am getting super excited about our DW. The only thing I would have changed about this process is making it earlier. FH father passed unexpectedly a year ago, so neither of his parents will be with us in body, only in spirit since they are both gone.
I have been working with the coordinator our resort has given us to work with throughout this whole process, so even my need for control is staying chill as we get closer to the "I Do!" It has been super easy and would have been much more work and I would be much more stressed than I am right now with almost 70 days to go.
As for tips I'd say make sure you keep communicating with your person (people) in the area, and have a coordinator. They may try to push you towards their main people they work with, but if you stay strong in your convictions for what you want you should be fine. It is just very helpful to have a person to talk to about what you want and how to get it. I would also suggest visiting in person before signing any contracts. Photos can easily be staged for what they want to show vs what it may actually look like in person.

Hey Chelsea! That's so awesome, what part of Canada? I found a great article that has some tips and tricks on planning a destination wedding! I'll link it below for you to look through!

Destination Wedding Tips

We’re planning a destination wedding. I’ve been doing it all pretty much myself. I’ve found all the venders through this site. Best part is I’ve been able to stay in budget! I’d recommend doing a destination wedding.

DW Wedding bride too! Wouldn’t have it any other way. It becomes a week long celebration for us and friends and family can spend more time than just the big day together. Also doubles as a mini moon and we’ll be taking our honeymoon on our 1 year.

A couple of months back, someone wanting to plan in Canada, from US, mentioned wishing WW had stuff on Canada. And I posted, did you know there is a special wedding wore in 12-15 other countries? And said, Ask Tech to give the proper web address for Wedding Wire Canada. And hours later when I checked😊 Tech Support had supplied the English speaking CA wedding wire address. So if stuff local to the area would help, and articles on how to deal with currency / price differences would help >>> give a shout out to tech support.

We are planning our wedding in Vegas from the UK. Its cheaper for us to have our wedding & reception and honeymoon in the US for 3 weeks than paying for a venue and food locally in the UK - crazy!

The downside is that we knew guests would say no due to costs ect which we prepared for. To our surprise, we have had around 18 people say yes!

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much for this tip! As I was considering the pros and cons, a big con was that there aren’t apps like WW and the knot in Canadian versions to help me with the planning process. I can’t tell you what a life saver it was to find out that this wasn’t the case! Thanks again!😄

Okay guys! Thank you all for your tips and input... as an update: we officially decided to choose the Canadian venue. We put down our deposit yesterday!!! I’m so excited... and cue... freak out! 🤪

Help Chelsea you are an official DW bride yahhhh congrats on your upcoming nuptials and your decision to do a destination wedding.